By Ivan Lubysh-Kirdey
PAVLOHRAD, Ukraine (Reuters) -Russia unleashed a fresh volley of missiles on Ukraine overnight, causing huge blazes in a city in the east, damaging dozens of homes and wounding at least 34 people.
The attack on Pavlohrad, a city and railway hub, came during the second wave of nationwide missile strikes in three days, with Moscow apparently reviving its winter tactic of long-range strikes ahead of a planned Ukrainian counteroffensive.
A huge crater had been blasted in the backyard of a house that was strewn with debris on Pavlohrad’s outskirts. Homes nearby were badly damaged. In the city centre, the windows of a dormitory that serves a chemical plant had been blown out.
“I ran outside and saw the garage was destroyed. Everything was on fire, glass shards were everywhere. Had we been outside, we would have been killed,” said resident Olha Lytvynenko, 61.
Viktoriia Suprun, 41, said she had taken cover with her daughter in the hallway of the dormitory.
“We rushed to the hallway, laid on the floor. And then the explosion wave twisted the door. Had we stayed for five more seconds, we would have been trapped here,” she said.
“We didn’t sleep at night and in the morning. My child will need psychological help, it is horrible.”
Mykola Lukashuk, head of the Dnipropetrovsk region council, said the attack had damaged 19 apartment blocks, 25 houses, three schools, three kindergartens and several shops. The 34 wounded included five children, the region’s governor said.
The city is located in southeastern Ukraine, behind the main eastern and southern front lines in the war.
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had struck using high-precision long-range air and sea-based missiles against “Ukraine’s military-industrial facilities”.
“The objectives of the strike were achieved,” it said in a statement. “The work of enterprises making ammunition, weapons and military equipment for Ukrainian troops has been disrupted.”
TURNING POINT
Damage appeared to be limited elsewhere in Ukraine, after air raid sirens sounded for hours through the night. Ukraine said it shot down 15 of 18 incoming cruise missiles.
Officials in the capital Kyiv said there were no reports of civilian casualties or damage there.
The energy ministry said attacks had significantly damaged electricity distribution points in the southern Kherson region and central-eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, leaving thousands of people without power. Repairs to the grid were set to take several days, it said in a statement.
The attacks came just three days after Russia killed 23 civilians in a high-rise apartment building in the city of Uman with a missile, part of its first big countrywide volley of air strikes in nearly two months.
Russia had launched waves of missile attacks on Ukraine from October until early March, often targeting energy infrastructure in what Kyiv called a deliberate strategy to harm and intimidate civilians, a war crime. Moscow says it does not target civilians and its attacks aim to reduce Kyiv’s ability to fight.
On the ground, the war is at a potential turning point after five months of Russian assaults that have secured little new territory despite the bloodiest ground combat of the war.
Kyiv is preparing to unleash a counterattack using hundreds of armoured vehicles and tanks donated by allies, and thousands of troops recently returned from training in the West.
On Saturday, an apparent Ukrainian drone hit a fuel storage depot in Sevastopol, base of the Russian navy in Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014. Kyiv has not directly claimed responsibility but strongly implied it, saying the blaze was part of its preparations for its offensive.
(Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly and Dan Peleschuk; Writing by Tom Balmforth and Peter Graff; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
