Multiple regions of Ukraine, including its capital, faced an indiscriminate Russian missile attack on Thursday, the largest wave of attacks targeting national infrastructure in weeks.
Alarm sirens wailed across the country. Mykhailo Podoliak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Russia fired greater than 120 missiles.
Russia sent explosive drones to chose regions at night, and in the morning expanded fire with “air and naval cruise missiles launched from strategic aircraft and ships,” the Ukrainian Air Force said.
This wide-ranging attack was the latest in a series of Russian attacks targeting key infrastructure in Ukraine. Moscow has carried out such attacks weekly since October, when its ground forces became bogged down and even out of position.
After earlier attacks, the Ukrainian military reported shooting down incoming Russian missiles and explosive drones, but some still reached their targets, destroying power and water supplies and increasing the suffering of the population amongst negative temperatures.
![Map showing where Russian missiles hit Ukraine on Thursday, December 29.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/GettyImages-1245864119.jpg?w=1024)
In keeping with the regional administration, air defense systems were launched in the capital Kiev on Thursday to repel the ongoing missile attack. Explosions echoed through the city.
At the least three people were injured and hospitalized, including a 14-year-old girl, Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said. He warned of power outages in the capital, asking people to top off on water and charge electronic devices.
Quite a few explosions also occurred in Kharkiv, which is situated in eastern Ukraine and is the second largest city in the country, and in Lviv near the Polish border, in line with their mayors.
About 90% of Lviv was without electricity, mayor Andriy Sadovy wrote on Telegram. Trams and trolleybuses were out of service and residents may experience water outages, he said.
Ukrainian authorities in several regions said that some incoming Russian missiles had been intercepted.
The governor of the Mykolaiv region in southern Ukraine, Vitaly Kim, said that five missiles were shot down over the Black Sea. The Ukrainian military command “North” reported that two were shot down over the Sumy region, situated on the border with Russia in the north-east of the country.
Shards from downed Russian missiles damaged two private buildings in the Darnitskaya district of Kiev, city officials said. An industrial facility and a playground in districts situated on the other side of the Dnieper River were also damaged, the city authorities informed. No casualties were reported immediately.
![Ukrainian Volodymyr Dubrovsliy lights a candle in his home. Dubrovsliy has been without electricity for more than four months.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/AP22362642178588.jpg?w=1024)
As the latest wave of Russian airstrikes began on Thursday, authorities in the Dnieper, Odessa and Kryvyi Rih regions said they’d turned off electricity to attenuate damage to critical infrastructure facilities in the event of successful.
Earlier this month, the US agreed to grant Patriot missile batteries to Ukraine as a way to strengthen the country’s defense. The US and other allies have also pledged energy-related equipment to assist Ukraine withstand attacks on its infrastructure.
Podoliak, an adviser to Zelensky, said Russia’s goal is to “destroy critical infrastructure and kill civilians en masse.”
“We’re waiting for further proposals from the “peacekeepers” for a “peaceful solution”, “security guarantees for the Russian Federation” and undesirable provocations, wrote Podoliak on Twitter, sarcastically referring to the statements of some Westerners who called on Ukraine to hunt a political settlement of the conflict.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Monday that his nation wanted a “peace” summit at the UN inside two months with Secretary General António Guterres as mediator. Kuleba said Russia must face a war crimes tribunal before his country begins direct talks with Moscow. Nevertheless, he said that other nations ought to be free to cooperate with the Russians.
Commenting on Thursday’s summit proposal, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dismissed it as “delirious” and “empty”, describing the proposal as “a publicity stunt by Washington attempting to forged the Kiev regime as a peacemaker.”
“This is an attempt to offer the appearance of legitimacy to a pointless discussion that is not going to be followed by any concrete steps,” Zakharova said during the briefing.
Russian officials said any peace plan could only be based on Kyiv’s recognition of Russia’s sovereignty over the regions it illegally annexed from Ukraine in September