KYIV: Russia launched a huge wave of missile strikes across Ukraine, killing at least six civilians, knocking out electricity and forcing a nuclear power plant off the grid.
In the attack that hit cities from Kharkiv in the north to Odesa in the south and Zhytomyr in the west, Ukraine also lost Europe’s largest nuclear plant after Russia launched missiles across Ukraine.
This is what Kyiv looks like this morning. Russian missiles hit energy power plant in what is one of biggest attacks since war began #Kyiv #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/cdRzMw2dgS
— Danny Armstrong (@DannyWArmstrong) March 9, 2023
“The occupiers can only terrorise civilians. That’s all they can do. But it won’t help them. They won’t avoid responsibility for everything they have done,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a statement, describing strikes that hit infrastructure and residential buildings in ten regions.
Reuters quoted Russia’s defence ministry as saying that it had carried out a “massive retaliatory strike” on Ukrainian infrastructure as payback for a cross-border raid last week on a village in Russia’s Bryansk region.
Russia delivered a massive retaliatory strike on key Ukrainian military sites with precision weapons, including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, in response to Kiev’s terror attacks in the Bryansk Region, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov reported on Thursday.
“In response to the terror attacks carried out by the Kiev regime in the Bryansk Region on March 2, the Russian Armed Forces delivered a massive retaliatory strike. Long-range air-, sea-and ground-based high-precision weapons, including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, hit key Ukrainian military infrastructure sites, enterprises of the military-industrial complex and related energy facilities,” the spokesman said.
The goal of the strike was achieved and all the designated targets were struck, the general stressed.