Ukraine rejects Russian missile attacks on civilians and maintains defense of Bakhmut

By Pavel Polityuk

KIEV, Ukraine, March 10 (Reuters) – The first Russian missile attack on Ukrainian towns in weeks was met in Kiev with defiance and revulsion at the targeting of civilians, as Ukrainian forces defending the eastern town of Bakhmut continued to thwart attacks. drill.

Ukraine’s military said Friday its soldiers had repelled 102 attacks in the past 24 hours in Bakhmut, a town that has been a key target for Russian forces since August.

A barrage of missiles killed at least nine civilians and knocked out power in several towns on Thursday, but the risk of disaster at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant was ruled out when power was restored after a temporary disconnection from the Ukrainian grid.

Ukraine said its air defenses shot down many drones and missiles, but Russia also fired six Kinzhal hypersonic cruise missiles which it failed to stop.

Moscow confirmed that it used Kinzhal – dagger in Russian – missiles in Thursday’s attack.

The massive strikes against targets far from the front were the first such wave since mid-February, breaking a truce in an air campaign against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure launched by Russia five months ago.

“The occupiers can only terrorize civilians. That’s all they can do,” said Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky. “But that won’t help them. They won’t shirk responsibility for anything they’ve done.”

Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilians. Its Ministry of Defense said it carried out a ‘massive retaliatory attack’ in revenge for a cross-border raid last week, claiming it destroyed drone bases, disrupted rail lines and damaged facilities manufacturing and repairing weapons.

Moscow says these attacks are aimed at reducing Ukraine’s combat capability. Kyiv says the airstrikes are not for military purposes and are intended to injure and intimidate civilians, which constitutes a war crime.

The missiles killed villagers in the western Lviv region and closer to the front line in the central Dnieper region, while Russian artillery also killed at least three people in the northeastern city of Kharkov. east of the country, announced the Ukrainian authorities.

In Kyiv, a woman held a small child outside her destroyed apartment as she expressed her anger at Russia after the attack.

“How can they do this? How is it possible? They are not human,” said Liudmyla, 58, after a night in which the sirens sounded for seven hours.

Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov claimed that Russian intelligence’s inability to identify military targets led to “plan B: demoralize the population”.

THE CLASH OF EMPIRES

Expressing his willingness to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin to seek peace, Pope Francis said in an interview published Friday that the war in Ukraine was fueled by “imperial interests, not only of the Russian empire, but of empires elsewhere”.

The White House said the barrage of missiles had been “devastating” and that Washington would continue to provide Ukraine with air defense capabilities.

Missile attacks briefly knocked out power at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia, disconnecting it from the grid and forcing it to use emergency diesel to avoid a meltdown. It was then reconnected to the Ukrainian power grid, operator Ukrenergo reported.

The plant, which Russia has held since capturing it at the start of the war, is close to the front line and both sides have warned in the past of the possibility of disaster. Moscow said it was safe.

The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, has called for a protection zone around the plant.

“Every time we draw lots. And if we allow it to continue again and again, one day our luck will run out,” Grossi told the IAEA’s Board of Governors, made up of 35 countries.

UKRAINE FIGHTS IN BAKHMOUTH

On the battlefield, the week saw an apparent change, as Ukraine decided to keep fighting in Bakhmut, a town that endured Russia’s winter offensive in the bloodiest fighting of the war. .

Moscow says Bakhmut is important for securing the surrounding Donbass region, one of the main targets of the war. The West says the ruined city is of little value and Russian forces are sacrificing lives to give Putin his only victory since sending hundreds of thousands of reservists into battle late last year.

Ukrainian military analyst Zhdanov said the defenders thwarted Russian attempts to completely encircle Bakhmut from the west. The southern front line had held out for several days, but the Russians had made some gains in the northern villages.

Moscow, which claims to have annexed a fifth of Ukraine, says it launched its “special military operation” a year ago to combat a security threat. kyiv and the West describe it as an unprovoked war to subjugate an independent state.

(Reporting from Reuters offices; Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Stephen Coates, Spanish editing by José Muñoz)