Russia launches a new massive wave of strikes against Ukraine

Mike Brest

December 16, 10:50 AM December 16, 10:50 AM

Russian forces launched their latest barrage of missiles across Ukrainian territory, damaging Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in several regions on Friday.

Ukraine’s ministry of defense said it had destroyed 60 of the 76 air and sea-based cruise missiles fired at targets across the country from Ukraine’s capital city of Kyiv, as well as in the northeastern city of Kharkiv and the central city of Kryvyi Rih. Kyiv, Odesa, Poltava, Zhytomyr, Kharkiv, and Sumy all reported strikes.

Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said “nine power generation facilities” were damaged in Friday’s attacks. The damage will lead to “restrictions of electricity production at nuclear generation facilities,” he added.

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At least two people were killed, and eight more were injured, when a residential building was hit by one of the strikes in Kryvyi Rih, officials said, according to the Washington Post. Most of the missiles had been targeted at Kyiv.

White House National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby told reporters on Friday that the attacks hit “largely civilian infrastructure.” Kirby said Russia is “again trying to put fear into the hearts of the Ukrainian people and to make it that much harder on them as winter is now upon them.”

The United States announced late last month that it would provide more than $53 million to Ukraine to support efforts to repair the destroyed critical infrastructure that Russia has spent weeks deliberately targeting. Kirby said that the first tranche had “arrived in Ukraine.”

“It includes the kinds of equipment that they need to make emergency repairs, such as relays, and bus bars, and surge arresters, disconnectors, [and] circuit breakers, that kind of thing,” he said. “So this first tranche is really designed to assist them with emergency repairs, but it's just the first tranche. There will be more coming in, in coming weeks, to fulfill that pledge of more than $50 million.”

Kirby did not announce new military aid despite reports that the administration is finalizing plans to send Ukraine the Patriot missile defense system. While the highly sophisticated U.S. system that is designed to track and intercept incoming ballistic and cruise missiles would help Ukraine, it would also likely take weeks or months of training in a third country before Ukrainians would have the system on the battlefield.