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A defiant Volodymyr Zelensky said his country “will survive” after Russia fired about 100 missiles into Ukraine on Tuesday, causing widespread blackouts across the country, leaving the capital Kyiv without power and leaving at least one person dead. Russian missiles rained down on Ukraine, hitting several other cities, including Lviv and Zhytomyr in the west, Kryvyi Rih in the south and Kharkiv in the east. According to information, many residential areas were affected. There were also claims that the missiles had caused blackouts in neighboring Moldova. Air raid sirens sounded and explosions rang out in nearly a dozen major cities in what Ukraine said was the heaviest wave of missile strikes in nearly nine months of war. A Ukrainian air force spokesman said Russia had fired about 100 missiles, while the Ukrainian leader put the number at 85, but warned more could follow. President Zelensky said: “I know that the strikes cut off power in many places… We are working, we will restore everything, we will survive.” The barrage came just days after Russian troops retreated from the key southern city of Kherson and followed a pattern in recent weeks of Moscow being pushed away from the front after losses on the battlefield. In the capital Kyiv, flames shot out of a five-story apartment building, one of two residential buildings that authorities said were hit there. The mayor said one person was killed and half the capital was without power. Residents were asked to stay in their homes. “The danger has not passed,” said Kirill Tymoshenko, the deputy head of President Zelensky’s office, as the country’s grid operator Ukrenergo said emergency shutdowns were being imposed in response to attacks. Other attacks or explosions were reported in cities ranging from Lviv and Zhytomyr in the west to Kryvy Rih in the south and Kharkiv in the east. District officials said some of the attacks had knocked out electricity. Lviv’s mayor said power had been cut in the city, and Kharkiv’s mayor, Ihor Terekhov, said critical infrastructure facilities had been damaged. Smoke rises over Lviv after the explosions (Reuters) Hours earlier, the Ukrainian president had called on world leaders at the G20 summit in Indonesia to help end Vladimir Putin’s invasion. The widespread attacks came just four days after Russian troops abandoned Kherson, the only regional capital Moscow had captured since its invasion, and just six weeks after President Putin declared it an eternal part of Russia. Russia had said last week that its troops would occupy easier-to-defend positions on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River. But video images shot in the town of Oleshky, across from a collapsed bridge from Kherson, appeared to show Russian forces had abandoned their bunkers there as well. Further east, Russian-based commanders said they were withdrawing civil servants from the region’s second-largest city, Nova Kakhovka, which sits on the riverbank next to a huge, strategic dam. Natalya Humenyuk, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian military, said Moscow appeared to be redeploying troops and artillery 15-20 km (10-12 miles) further from the Dnipro to protect its weapons from Ukrainian counterattacks. Russia still had artillery capable of hitting Kherson from these new positions, but “we also have something to answer for,” he said. Just 24 hours earlier, President Zelensky had toured the recaptured city and was greeted by jubilant residents. The war was the focus of the G20 summit, where Western leaders denounced Moscow. Western countries sought a summit statement condemning the war despite Russian opposition and a lack of unanimity. Diplomats released a 16-page draft that said: “Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed that it is causing enormous human suffering and exacerbating existing weaknesses in the global economy.” French President Emmanuel Macron also called on China to work more closely together to help end the war. China is seen as Russia’s key ally in the conflict, but it was revealed in September that Beijing had “questions and concerns” about the conflict. Firefighters work to extinguish a fire in an apartment building (Reuters) However, a Chinese summary of the talks with Mr Macron made no mention of Ukraine until the last paragraph. Kremlin Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the head of Russia’s delegation in Mr Putin’s absence, accused the West of trying to politicize the statement. Also on Tuesday, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) found that both Russia and Ukraine have tortured prisoners of war. The Ukraine-based monitoring group based its findings on interviews with more than 100 prisoners of war on each side of the conflict.
