Russia launched missiles into several Ukrainian cities on October 31, including the nation’s capital, Kyiv, as the Kremlin continues its relentless assault on Ukrainian critical infrastructure in the hopes of wearing down its population’s will to resist.
Russia has been targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure and other civilian buildings with missile, drone, and artillery attacks for weeks amid a Ukrainian counteroffensive that has driven Russian troops out of the northeast and pushed them back in the east and southeast.
With its eight-month invasion failing and the prospects of a defeat rising, the Kremlin is seeking to terrorize and demoralize the Ukrainian population in an attempt to break it, Western and Ukrainian officials have said.
Russia has destroyed more than 40 percent of Ukraine's energy infrastructure in a few weeks, causing electricity cuts in Kyiv and other places as winter approaches.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said some areas of the capital were left without electricity after the morning strikes.
"Currently, due to damage to an energy facility near Kyiv, 80 percent of the capital's consumers remain without water supply," Klitschko said on Telegram, urging the public to stock up on water whenever possible.
Klitschko also said work is under way to restore power to 350,000 homes in Kyiv, a city with a prewar population of 2.9 million.
Ihor Terekhov, the mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, said two missiles targeted a critical infrastructure facility.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the October 31 attacks were a sign of Russian military weakness.
"Another batch of Russian missiles hits Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. Instead of fighting on the battlefield, Russia fights civilians," he said.
In the southern city of Marhanets, Russian Grad missiles hit apartment buildings and a high school, killing a 31-year-old woman, the head of the regional administration, Valentyn Reznichenko, wrote on Telegram.
The central city of Vinnytsya in western Ukraine was under rocket fire, according to regional Governor Serhiy Borzov.
There were also reports of air attacks in the Poltava and Kirovohrad regions.
The multiple attacks prompted Ukraine to announce a nationwide air alert on October 31.
Separately, in eastern Ukraine, the military command said there were fierce battles near Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, and that Ukrainian forces had held back Russian assaults on two other areas in the region, around Avdiyivka and Uhledar.
The latest wave of air strikes comes after Russia accused Ukraine of attacking its Black Sea Fleet near Sevastopol with 16 drones on October 29. Ukraine has rejected the accusations.
Russia used that alleged drone attack to announce that it would suspend its participation in a UN-brokered deal that allowed Ukraine, one of the world’s breadbaskets, to export grain to global markets.
Moscow has asked the UN Security Council to meet on October 31 to discuss the alleged drone attack.
