Russian forces fired one other spherical of missiles and self-exploding drones throughout a number of components of Ukraine early Thursday, inflicting 11 deaths throughout the nation, although air defences shot down most of the incoming projectiles.
The assaults adhered to Russia's latest sample of launching widespread strikes about each two weeks.
As air raid sirens echoed throughout the nation, civilians, some with their pet canine, poured into subway stations, underground parking heaps and basements to hunt shelter.
The newest onslaught comes after Germany agreed to provide 14 of its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and consequently pave the way in which for different international locations to do the identical, together with the US, which is able to ship 31 of its personal Abrams tanks.
Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander of Ukraine's armed forces, stated Thursday's assault concerned 55 missiles, of which 47 have been intercepted.
Russia has focused essential infrastructure with missile and drone strikes since October, inflicting nationwide blackouts and different outages throughout winter.
Ukrainian Vitality Minister Herman Halushchenko stated vitality amenities have been once more focused on Thursday by Russian forces who have been “attempting to trigger a systemic failure within the vitality system of Ukraine.”
He acknowledged that some vitality amenities had been hit, leading to emergency outages, and restore groups have been working to revive energy provide as shortly as potential.
The DTEK electrical energy firm had additionally stated it was performing emergency shutdowns of electrical energy in Kyiv, the remainder of the capital's area, in addition to the areas of Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk, as a result of menace of an air raid.
Self-exploding drones swept in in a single day earlier than the missile strikes, in what a spokesperson for Ukraine's Southern Defence Forces stated gave the impression to be a Russian try to overwhelm or distract Ukraine's air defences.