KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that Russia had launched North Korean missiles at Ukraine overnight to batter one of its key energy facilities as the war-torn country braces for winter.
‘Technical assessments are ongoing at the sites hit by ballistic missiles. According to preliminary findings, at one of the key energy facilities that was damaged, the Russians used KN-23 missiles manufactured and supplied by North Korea,’ Zelensky said on social media.
He accused Russia of intensifying strikes across the country to put pressure on Kyiv at upcoming talks after an overnight barrage triggered power cuts as temperatures drop. The latest strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure came days before the trilateral US-brokered meeting in Abu Dhabi scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday aimed at reviving stalled diplomatic efforts towards peace.
Ukraine’s energy ministry said ‘a massive attack on a number of energy facilities’ had plunged five regions into darkness and significantly hampered electricity transmission in Kyiv and surrounding region. Zelensky said the timing of the aerial barrage showed that Russia had a ‘very particular view of diplomacy’ as it struck ahead of ‘another joint effort with our partners to reinvigorate negotiations’. ‘By intensifying its attacks on Ukraine and our infrastructure at this very moment, Russia is trying to additionally lay the groundwork for putting pressure on Ukraine’s position and that of its partners,’ Zelensky said.
Moscow has battered Ukraine’s energy grid and infrastructure throughout its four-and-a-half-year invasion and Kyiv was now bracing for another harsh winter as temperatures begin to hover around freezing.-AFP