On Thursday, the Russian army launched mass rockets and cruise missiles into Ukraine.

The attacks were again directed against the country's civilian infrastructure.

There had already been drone attacks on cities in several Ukrainian regions on Wednesday evening and on Thursday night.

On Thursday morning there was an air alert throughout Ukraine.

Later there was talk of a total of three waves of attacks that lasted more than five hours.

Robert Putzbach

Editor in Politics

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Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Mykhailo Podoliak initially spoke on Twitter of more than 120 rockets being fired into Ukrainian territory.

The Ukrainian general staff later spoke of 69 missiles, 54 of which had been intercepted by the air defenses.

There were impacts in the Kharkiv, Odessa, Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions, among others.

According to Ukrainian information, the Russian armed forces again used S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to engage ground targets.

Millions of people without electricity

The rockets and cruise missiles were apparently fired from both bombers and ships in the Black Sea.

Authorities said that 16 missiles were intercepted by anti-aircraft defenses in the capital Kyiv alone.

However, several civilians were injured and buildings and vehicles damaged by falling rocket parts.

Because of the attacks, millions of people were temporarily left without electricity.

Critical infrastructure often had to be converted to generator operation.

According to authorities, about ninety percent of Lviv's urban area was without electricity after the attacks.

Russia boasted about the attacks on the neighboring country's civilian infrastructure.

The Kremlin portrays them as retaliation for alleged "terrorist attacks" by Kiev, for example on the Crimean Bridge.

The Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday released an image showing a cruise missile being launched.

The picture is captioned "Kalibr never run out".

Western intelligence services and observers have been saying for months that Russia's stockpiles of missiles and precision munitions, such as Kalibr-type guided missiles, are running out.

Russia has consistently denied information about an alleged lack of missiles.

Rocket fragments hit Belarus

Since October, Russia has been attacking the Ukrainian infrastructure in massive waves of attacks, as it is doing today.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had been warning of impending new attacks for days.

Meanwhile, according to the authorities, the Russian air defense in the southern Russian region of Saratov shot down a drone near the Engels-2 military airfield.

“On the territory of the district, anti-aircraft defense has become active.

An unknown object was destroyed," Governor Roman Busargin said on his Telegram channel on Thursday.

The military airfield where Russia deploys strategic bombers for missile attacks on Ukraine was previously attacked twice in December.

After the use of Ukrainian anti-aircraft defenses against Russian attacks, Belarus reported that a missile had been found on its territory.

The Belarusian Defense Ministry said that the air defense forces hit an air target around 10 a.m. today: “During verification measures, it was preliminary established that the debris belonged to an S-300 anti-aircraft guided missile launched from the territory of Ukraine,” the state news agency Belta reported that the missile may have reached Belarusian territory during a Ukrainian air defense operation.

In November there was a similar incident in Poland.