For yesterday’s attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, Russia appears to have used its last stockpile of modern missiles. This is reported by the independent Russian magazine The Insider. All that’s left now are “old, Soviet” rockets. “This stuff is still good enough, but not great either. Enough for terror, but no more,” military expert Pavel Luzin told the magazine.
Yesterday, Russia launched rocket attacks on several cities in Ukraine. “Kyiv is being bombed non-stop. The whole city,” journalist Oleksiy Sorokin wrote on Twitter. Other cities such as Dnipro, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhia were also affected.
In recent attacks on more than 20 Ukrainian cities, Russia fired 84 cruise missiles. In addition, Putin’s army carried out 24 drone attacks, 13 of them with the Iranian Shahed-136 drones. According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the Ukrainian General Staff said so. The Ukrainian air defense was able to shoot down 43 cruise missiles, 10 Shahed 136 drones and three unspecified drones.
ISW said that Russia fired its missiles from 10 strategic bombers in the Caspian Sea and from Nizhny Novgorod and six missile carriers in the Black Sea. The Iranian Shahed drones, on the other hand, were shot down from Crimea and Belarus.
According to Ukrainian media reports, the Russian rocket attacks hit 70 targets, including 29 critical infrastructure facilities, four skyscrapers, 35 residential buildings and a school. At least 14 people are said to have been killed and 97 others injured, Ukraine said.
Russian President Putin has stressed that he will escalate proportionately in future retaliatory attacks. He stated, according to ISW, that if Ukraine “continues to carry out terrorist attacks against [Russian] territory, Russian responses will be harsh and their scale will be commensurate with the level of threat to the Russian Federation.”
The proportionality statement suggests that Putin intends to continue climbing the escalation ladder, rung by rung and cautiously, rather than moving to more dramatic measures such as the use of nuclear weapons. Putin may also want to signal to Russian pro-war advocates not to get their expectations too high for a daily bombardment of Ukraine like the one carried out on Monday.
After a Russian missile attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, local military chief Oleksandr Vikul said 98 miners were still trapped underground because of a power outage. According to Wilkul, more than 850 miners were initially trapped in four mines.
Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Cherson – Moscow declared these four Ukrainian regions to be part of Russia at the end of September. In an emergency session of the UN General Assembly on Monday, Ukraine called for the illegal annexation to be condemned. “The so-called referendums had nothing to do with what we call expressions of the people’s will – either legally or technically,” said Ukraine’s Ambassador to the UN, Serhiy Kislizia demands that Russia reverse its actions At the end of the session, which could last until Wednesday, the largest UN body with 193 member states is to vote on the resolution condemning Moscow in a global mood test on the Ukraine war.
Russia has failed in its attempt to keep the vote in the UN General Assembly on its sham referendums secret. With 107 votes, the panel voted to hold the public vote expected on Wednesday. 13 states voted against and 39 abstained. Russia had argued that a secret ballot was necessary because of Western pressure, otherwise “it could become very difficult when the positions are presented publicly”. Meanwhile, Russia’s UN ambassador Wassili Nebensja complained about “dangerous polarization” at the UN and the formation of blocs that undermine international cooperation.
US President Biden pledged continued support to Ukraine in the face of massive Russian airstrikes. This also included other modern anti-aircraft systems, as he said in a phone call with Zelenskyy. When it comes to arms deliveries, air defense is currently the top priority, emphasized the Ukrainian President.
Because of the escalation of the Russian war against Ukraine, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) expects new displaced persons. UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said in Geneva that if people were left with nowhere to stay, no heating or supplies as a result of the destruction, the number of people seeking refuge elsewhere would increase. However, with international support, Ukraine is now better prepared than when the war began in February to take in compatriots in parts of the country less affected by the war. According to Grandi, six to seven million people are currently displaced in Ukraine.
That will be important on Tuesday
Zelenskyi will also speak at the G7 video conference after the latest Russian attacks. The emergency session of the UN General Assembly on the illegal annexation of Ukrainian territories by Russia continues in New York. In Brussels, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg provides information about a meeting of defense ministers planned for Wednesday and Thursday.
According to the Kremlin, Russia’s President Putin will meet the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in St. Petersburg. According to Rafael Grossi, he is negotiating with Kyiv and Moscow about a protection zone around the Russian-occupied Ukrainian nuclear power plant Zaporizhia in order to avert the danger of an accident.
Also Read: The October 10th Ukraine Update
