Russian President Putin Threatens Kyiv Leadership After Energy Grid Strikes

Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued a threat to target decision-making centers within Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, utilizing the nation’s new Oreshnik ballistic missile. Putin’s remarks came just hours after Russia conducted a “comprehensive” overnight assault on Ukraine’s energy network, which he characterized as a retaliation for “continued attacks” on Russian territory involving US-supplied Atacms missiles. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky cautioned that any “Russian blackmail” would be met with a “tough response.” Last week, Ukraine employed Atacms and UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles for strikes inside Russian borders, marking the first such instance since the full-scale invasion of February 2022, following authorization from Western suppliers including the US, the UK, and France. The Russian overnight assault spanned several hours, involving successive waves of drones and missiles across Ukraine, and represented the second such attack this month. While no fatalities were reported, the strike left over one million people in Ukraine without electricity. Zelensky stated that cluster munitions were deployed against both civilian and energy infrastructure. He asserted that “Cluster warheads [are] a particularly dangerous type of Russian weaponry used against civilians,” and noted that they “significantly complicated” the efforts of rescue and repair teams. Putin confirmed that the Russian attack, which comprised 90 missiles and 100 drones, also featured the “Oreshnik,” a new ballistic missile that, according to Putin, is impervious to interception. US officials, however, believe Russia likely possesses only a limited quantity of the experimental Oreshnik missiles and would require time to manufacture additional units. In his nightly address, Zelensky responded by stating that Putin “has no interest in ending this war” and aimed to “prevent others from ending this war.” He further elaborated that “[His] escalation now is a form of pressure aimed at eventually forcing the president of the United States to accept Russia’s terms.” The Russian leader also declared that Moscow would not permit Ukraine to acquire nuclear weapons, and if it ever did, Russia would employ “all means of destruction at Russia’s disposal,” as reported by Russia’s state-run news agency RIA. This statement is widely interpreted as a reference to reports in the New York Times last week, which indicated that unnamed Western officials had proposed providing Ukraine with nuclear weapons before US President Joe Biden’s departure from office in January. Zelensky has also consistently voiced concerns that the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which Ukraine relinquished its nuclear arsenal inherited from the USSR, left the country without adequate security. The Russian assaults triggered explosions in multiple cities, including Odesa, Kharkiv, and Lutsk. Kyiv was also targeted, but Ukrainian authorities reported that all missiles aimed at the capital were successfully intercepted. Kyiv’s military administration specified that the attack on the capital lasted nearly nine-and-a-half hours. At least 12 regions throughout Ukraine, encompassing three western areas, sustained hits, and Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko announced the implementation of emergency power outages. In the Rivne region, head of administration Oleksandr Koval reported that electricity supplies were cut for more than 280,000 residents. In the Lviv region, approximately 523,000 homes and businesses lost power, according to regional head Maksym Kozytsky. Authorities in Kherson indicated that residents there could face days without electricity. Ukrainian authorities have reacted by initiating pre-emptive emergency power cuts to mitigate damaging overloads on the national grid. Temperatures are declining, and Ukraine has already experienced its initial snowfalls, though the full intensity of its notoriously harsh winter has yet to arrive. Ukrainian officials anticipate another coordinated Russian effort to debilitate the power grid as winter approaches. They have long warned that Russia has been accumulating cruise and ballistic missiles for the purpose of launching synchronized, nationwide attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Earlier this month, DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, reported that its thermal energy plants sustained “significant damage,” leading to blackouts. DTEK stated that Thursday’s attack marked the eleventh “major attack” on the country’s energy system since March. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, DTEK’s plants have been targeted over 190 times. DTEK further noted that the European Commission and the US have provided up to €107m (£89m) in equipment aid to assist with power restoration. Having already endured two-and-a-half severe winters since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukrainians are now preparing for another.