The latest attack on the home of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky caused serious damage. Two rockets hit the same tank on Wednesday, which was under repair, Kryvyi Rih military administrator Oleksandr Vilkul said. He urged residents to remain in shelters. It came as Zelensky met European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who was in Kyiv on her third visit since Russia’s wide-scale invasion. Zelensky, in his midnight speech on Wednesday, described Russia’s tactics as the work of “weak and crooks” who had left the battlefield and were doing harm from “afar”. On Thursday he said the Kremlin was cynically targeting thousands of civilians in revenge for its military defeats. “We are not talking about military infrastructure here. This is no surprise to us,” he said, standing next to Von der Leyen at his Mariinsky Palace residence. Russia has stepped up its attacks on electricity and utility providers following Ukraine’s shock counterattack in the country’s northeast. Within days, Ukrainian troops recaptured almost the entire Kharkiv region, including nearly 400 settlements. Moscow’s recent strikes have cut off water and electricity. Earlier this week Russian warplanes fired long-range missiles at a major power station in Kharkiv, plunging the city and much of the surrounding area into darkness. Why is Vladimir Putin so obsessed with Ukraine? Zelensky said he and the president of the European Commission discussed how to keep their citizens warm during the winter, at a time when Moscow has cut off natural gas to much of Europe. Ukraine has been exporting electricity to the EU since it was connected to its grid in March. He also called on Germany, Italy, France, the US and Israel to provide Kyiv with modern air defense systems. Berlin has promised to send Iris-T air defense units, but they have not yet arrived. Zelensky said the technology was urgently needed to give Ukrainians security. For the top European official’s visit, the Ukrainian president unveiled a fame-style plaque bearing Von der Leyen’s name outside his palace residence. Along with repeat visitors Boris Johnson and the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, in the “Alley of the Brave”. Air raid alarms sounded minutes before Thursday’s joint news conference. Von der Leyen said the successful Ukrainian counter-offensive around Kharkiv had “raised the spirits” of Zelensky’s “European friends”. Talks were continuing on Kyiv joining the EU and the single market, he said, adding: “We are friends forever. We will be with you as long as needed.” In Kryvyi Rih, engineers had begun repairing some of the missile damage to the hydraulic system that had caused the Inhulets River to burst its banks. Eight cruise missiles hit the pumping station there on Wednesday in what Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba described as a brazen “act of terror”. According to the governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleh Synyehubov, Russian soldiers retreating from the city of Balakliia blew up the local gas operator. Almost all of the company’s specialized vehicles were stolen, Synyehubov said, adding that Ukrainian utilities are working to restore supply. Russian units were reported to be digging in around the town of Svatove, in Luhansk province, after retreating from neighboring Kharkiv region last week. They have fortified positions on the east bank of the Oskil River, about 10 miles from the recently liberated city of Izium. Leonid Pasechnik, the head of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, admitted that the “Ukrainian enemy” is now “almost at the border”. He insisted there was absolutely no reason to panic, repeating the phrase twice. The Ukrainian enemy is just around the corner, according to Leonid Pasechnik, head of the Luhansk People’s Republic, but he insists there is “no reason to panic” In fact he’s so sure it needs to be repeated pic.twitter.com/5XRSpQ01N0 — Francis Scarr (@francis_scarr) September 15, 2022 The Institute for the Study of War said the Kremlin was trying to deflect blame for Russia’s embarrassing military failures from Vladimir Putin. Instead, they blamed “uninformed military advisers,” the US think tank said in its latest update. He added: “Kremlin officials and state media propagandists are discussing at length the reasons for the Russian defeat in the Kharkiv region, a marked shift from the previous pattern of reporting exaggerated or fabricated Russian successes with limited detail.”
