KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Airstrikes cut power and water
supplies to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians on Tuesday, part of what the
country’s president called an expanding Russian campaign to drive the nation
into the cold and dark and make peace talks impossible.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said nearly one-third
of Ukraine’s power stations have been destroyed in the past week, “causing
massive blackouts across the country.”
“No space left for negotiations with Putin’s
regime,” he tweeted.
Depriving people of water, electricity and heat as
winter begins to bite and the broadening use of so-called suicide drones that
nosedive into targets have opened a new phase in Russian President Vladimir
Putin’s war. The bombardments appear aimed at wearing down the notable
resilience Ukrainians have shown in the nearly eight months since Moscow
invaded.
Even far from front lines, basic utilities are no
longer certainties, with daily strikes reaching far into the country and
damaging key facilities, sometimes faster than they can be repaired.
The latest city shorn of power was Zhytomyr, home to
military bases, industries and leafy boulevards, about 140 kilometers (85
miles) west of Kyiv. The mayor said the whole city of 250,000 lost power and
also water initially. Repairs quickly reconnected some homes, but 150,000
people were still without electricity hours after the morning strike, regional
authorities said.
Pavlo Raboschuk, a 33-year-old computer repairman in
Zhytomyr, fumed over the attack that sent smoke billowing skyward. Only small
shops that could get by without electricity were open on his route to work, he
said.
“Only swear words come to mind,” he said. He added
that he’s bracing “for a tough and dark winter,” with dehydrated foods, warm
clothes and batteries already stockpiled at home.
City hospitals switched to backup power after the
double missile strike Tuesday on an energy facility, said Mayor Serhiy
Sukhomlyn.
In the capital of Kyiv, missiles damaged two power
facilities and killed two people, city authorities said. The attack left 50,000
people without power for a few hours, the facilities’ operator said.
Missiles also severely damaged an energy facility in
the south-central city of Dnipro. Some homes lost power but the operator
couldn’t immediately say how many.
Russia is mixing up its modes of attack.
Suicide drones set ablaze an infrastructure facility
in the partly Russian-occupied southern Zaporizhzhia region, the regional
governor said.
Air-defense S-300 missiles, which Russia has been
repurposing as ground-attack weapons as its stocks diminish, were used to
strike the southern city of Mykolaiv. The body of a man was found in the debris
of a building, the governor said.
In the eastern city of Kharkiv, eight rockets fired
from across the nearby border with Russia hit an industrial area, the regional
governor said.
In Zhytomyr, school director Iryna Kolodzynska had
students back at their desks within 30 minutes of the air raid all-clear.
Without power for their computers, they used the class board to work on math
equations.
“We must not break down,” she said. “There are
regions that suffered much more from the war than we did.”
Waves of the explosives-laden suicide drones also
struck Kyiv on Monday, hitting energy facilities and other buildings. One drone
slammed into a residential building, killing four people.
Kyiv’s military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov,
said Iran provided Russia with a first batch of 1,750 Shahed drones and Moscow
has placed more orders.
An Associated Press photographer caught one of the
Iranian drones on camera Monday, its triangle-shaped wing and pointed warhead
clearly visible, though the Kremlin refused to confirm their use.
In the past week alone, more than 100
self-destructing Iranian-made drones have slammed into power plants, sewage
treatment plants, residential buildings, bridges and other targets in urban
areas, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba proposed cutting all
diplomatic ties with Tehran over the drones, saying: “Since Iran has become an
accomplice in Russia’s aggression and crimes on our territory, we will take a
clear and honest stand.”
Zelenskyy, in a televised address Monday night, said
Russia is using the drones because it is losing ground in the war.
“Russia doesn’t have any chance on the battlefield,
and it tries to compensate for its military defeats with terror,” he said. “Why
this terror? To put pressure on us, on Europe, on the entire world.”
Ukrainian troops have made gains in recent weeks in
a seven-week counteroffensive in the south and east.
Zelenskyy’s tweet ruling out talks with Putin wasn’t
the first time he’s said he won’t negotiate with the Russian leader. Russia and
Ukraine held several rounds of talks in the first month after Moscow’s invasion
in February, but those fell apart. The Kremlin has said talks could only be
possible if Ukraine meets Russian demands and accepts its land grabs of
Ukrainian territory. Ukraine has flatly ruled out talks on those terms.
In other developments:
— Ukraine’s nuclear energy operator said Russian
forces have detained two more senior employees at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear
Power Plant. Energoatom said their whereabouts are unknown. Also unknown are
the whereabouts of another executive who was detained earlier in October.
— In Russia, the death toll from Monday’s crash of a
Russian warplane rose to 15. The Su-34 bomber hit a residential area in the
port city of Yeysk after one of its engines caught fire during takeoff for a
training mission, the Defense Ministry said. Both crew members bailed out
safely, but tons of fuel exploded, officials said.