Sirens sounded across Ukraine today, Friday, following an intense Russian missile attack, in which the Ukrainian Air Force said that Russia had launched 71 missiles, and its defenses managed to shoot down 61 of them.

The Ukrainian Air Force said that the Russian forces launched 71 X-101, X-555 and Caliber missiles from the Caspian and Black Seas and from the city of Volgodonsk in Russia, in addition to 8 Tu-95MS strategic bombs.

For his part, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal considered that "Russia does not accept failures, and therefore continues to terrorize the population, and this is another attempt to destroy the Ukrainian energy network and deprive the Ukrainians of electricity, heat and water," he said.


Zaporizhia offensive

Local officials said that the attack on Zaporizhia was the most violent since the beginning of the Russian war on Ukraine in February 2022, and indicated that vital infrastructure was also attacked in the Khmelnytsky region (western Ukraine), the Kharkiv region in the northeast, and the Dnepropetrovsk region (center of the country).

In the same context, Russia and the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Thursday that they hoped to make progress in establishing a safe zone around the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, which has been bombed repeatedly over the past months.

For its part, the company operating the Ukrainian state electricity network said that several facilities in eastern, southern and western Ukraine were bombed, causing power outages.


New weapons

Commenting on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's call on European leaders to provide his country with aircraft and long-range weapons, French President Emmanuel Macron said yesterday evening, Thursday, that the fighters that Kyiv wants cannot be delivered in the coming weeks, stressing that he prefers "more useful" weapons that can be delivered in a timely manner. Faster, he said.

Macron indicated that the Caesar cannons and the medium-range air defense system provided by France meet these criteria.

For its part, Britain announced that it is aware of the potential escalation risks of supplying Ukraine with more Western weapons, at a time when it played down the possibility of Kyiv handing over old "Typhoon" fighters.


Putin's speech

Meanwhile, the Kremlin said that Russian President Vladimir Putin will address the nation on February 21, the Kremlin announced Friday, and the speech comes a few days before the first anniversary of the war in Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the speech would touch on the "current situation", in particular Russia's military intervention in Ukraine and the socio-economic situation in Russia.

Peskov noted that Russian servicemen who take part in operations in Ukraine will "certainly" be invited to the speech.