Olena Rozumovska is on the finish of her rope.
Her two-bedroom condominium in an Soviet-era concrete constructing has no electrical energy or water provide, and the central heating is off after Russian drones and missiles struck Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest metropolis, on Friday.
“It’s insufferable, inconceivable. I wish to howl with despair,” the 33-year-old, whose husband, Mykhailo, is preventing towards Russian forces in southeastern Ukraine, informed Al Jazeera over the telephone.
The outside temperatures in Kharkiv barely rose above freezing on Friday, a chilly drizzle was falling, and her condominium constructing “is dropping heat”, she mentioned.
Early within the morning, she jumped away from bed on listening to the thud of a robust explosion. Greater than a dozen heavy, blood-curdling blasts adopted as she hid within the frigid basement together with her two youngsters, Bohdan, who’s seven, and four-year-old Roxana.
The kids have been “hysterical” as a result of they needed to depart their Siamese cat behind. Their pet, named Monya, wouldn’t come out from below the couch.
What roiled her and thousands and thousands of Ukrainians was the scope of the bombardment, which turned the biggest strike on their nation’s vitality infrastructure for the reason that struggle started in 2022.
“The goal isn’t just to destroy however to attempt but once more, like final 12 months, to trigger an enormous disruption of the vitality infrastructure,” Power Minister Herman Halushchenko wrote on Fb.
Within the winter of 2022-2023, Moscow switched to large shelling that focused vitality infrastructure and civilian websites after realising that its blitzkrieg to take over all of Ukraine had failed.
Friday’s assaults with about 60 drones and 90 missiles killed at the least two individuals, wounded scores, struck Ukraine’s largest dam and severed the ability provide to the Russia-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, officers mentioned.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rebuked the West for months-long delays in army support.
“Russian missiles don’t have any delays, in contrast to support packages for Ukraine. [Iranian-made] ‘Shahed’ drones don’t have any indecision, in contrast to some politicians. It’s vital to know the price of delays and postponed choices,” he posted on X, previously often known as Twitter.
Energoatom, Ukraine’s major nuclear company, mentioned the Zaporizhzhia plant was “on the verge of blackout” as a result of the strike knocked offline the primary energy line.
Russia seized the plant in March 2022, however did not redirect its electrical energy move to energy-starved Crimea.
The plant’s reactors have been shut down however want a continuing energy provide to maintain them cool and stop the melting of uranium gasoline rods.
Inside hours, the severed line was reconnected, a supply at Energoatom informed Al Jazeera.
“That is the primary energy line. There’s additionally a reserve one, and if solely the latter is left, there’s a threat of blackout,” the supply mentioned.
Friday’s assault was the second in two days – a change of techniques as Moscow “is on the lookout for maximally efficient methods to succeed in its targets,” defence spokeswoman Natalya Humenyuk mentioned.
“We’re on the lookout for efficient means to counter them – and so they’re on the lookout for the methods to strain [and] terrorise,” she mentioned in televised remarks.
“One can hardly bear in mind two assaults for 2 days in a row. However such an assault was anticipated after the [presidential] election in Russia”, which was held on March 15-17, she mentioned.
Some analysts disagreed together with her evaluation.
There isn’t any change of techniques, and the Russian assaults are “enterprise as regular,” Nikolay Mitrokhin at Bremen College in Germany informed Al Jazeera.
They’re revenge for a string of profitable Ukrainian strikes inside Russia, he mentioned.
In latest weeks, pro-Ukrainian battalions of Russian nationalists repeatedly attacked the western Russian areas of Belgorod and Kursk on Ukraine’s border.
They have been backed by devastating Ukrainian drone and missile strikes on Belgorod.
On Wednesday, new, superior Ukrainian drones reached a key airfield in Russia’s Volga area that has been utilized by strategic bombers to launch missiles on Ukraine.
Moscow mentioned its forces shot down the drones, however Mitrokhin mentioned the assault was “apparently profitable”.
Extra drone and missile assaults destroyed or broken Russia’s vitality infrastructure in latest months.
Since January, Ukraine struck at the least 9 oil refineries in western Russia – together with depots, terminals and storage services – decreasing Moscow’s oil-processing capability by 7 %, in accordance with a calculation by the Reuters information company.
On March 13, one of many assaults set afire a refinery within the western metropolis of Ryazan, prompting the shutdown of two refining models. The mammoth refinery produces virtually 6 % of Russia’s refined crude.
A day earlier, one other Ukrainian strike halved the capability of one other refinery close to town of Nizhny Novgorod that sits greater than 1,000km (621 miles) east of the Ukrainian border.
The assaults dealt a blow to Moscow’s major supply of export revenues that fund the struggle in Ukraine regardless of crippling sanctions imposed by the West.
Washington urged Kyiv to cease the assaults on the refineries as a result of they might escalate the battle, the Monetary Occasions reported on Friday.
This week’s double assaults by Moscow’s troops can also pave the best way for Russia’s summer time floor offensive.
“This might be seen as a brand new operation that’s going to develop into a prelude to Russia’s summer time offensive,” Kyiv-based analyst Aleksey Kushch informed Al Jazeera.
One other observer warned that essentially the most severe and worrying strike on Friday was the one which focused the dam of the dual Dniprovska hydropower stations, Ukraine’s largest.
“Ultimately, strikes resembling these needed to happen,” Kyiv-based analyst Ihar Tyshkevich informed Al Jazeera.
He mentioned melting snow and ice within the higher reaches of the Dnipro River have already triggered a spring flood that may attain its most degree inside a month.
“Now, think about if only one dam is hit,” he mentioned.
Russian missiles struck the ability station in December 2022 and February 2023. Friday’s assault broken each energy stations and began a big fireplace.
“Nonetheless, there’s no hazard of the dam being destroyed,” Ihor Sirota, head of the Ukrhydroenergo company, which runs the stations, informed Radio Liberty.
