Putin spreads “terror and murder” across Ukraine with new rocket attacks, leaves cities without power and claims lives in Kiev after newborn dies in overnight maternity ward strike

Russia unleashed another deadly wave on Ukraine today with a relentless series of missile attacks on homes and critical infrastructure across the country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Moscow of spreading new “terror and murder” in Ukraine hours after a newborn baby died in an attack on a maternity hospital.

The latest airstrikes hit a two-story apartment building in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, killing three people and injuring three others and damaging vital infrastructure in and around the city.

Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power grid left residents of the entire Kiev region, the western city of Lyiv, the northern city of Kharkov and the southern Odessa region without power.

The bombing also caused power outages in half of neighboring Moldova, the country’s deputy prime minister said on Wednesday.

Air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine, and local residents reported seeing Ukrainian air defense systems deployed in various parts of the country.

Several regions in Ukraine reported a rapid succession of attacks, indicating a wave of attacks by the Russian military.

The renewed barrage will cause further hardship to a country already plagued by repeated attacks on its power grid, as Russia appears intent on weaponizing the start of winter with aerial bombing of Ukraine’s key infrastructure.

The airstrikes hit a two-story apartment building in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, killing at least one person and destroying vital infrastructure in and around the city. Pictured: An airstrike victim is led to the ground while wrapped in an emergency medical blanket

Residents in Kiev carry a person injured in the Russian missile attack in a duvet cover on Wednesday

First responders arrived at the scene of the fire in Kiev after the Russian missile attack on Wednesday

In Kiev, local residents heard several loud explosions as anti-aircraft missiles flew overhead.

Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said “one of the capital’s infrastructure facilities was hit” and there were “further explosions in several districts” of the city. He added that the water supply was closed throughout Kyiv.

Meanwhile, the mayor of Kharkiv said power was out in the city, Ukraine’s second largest city, and all public transport had stopped.

Lviv Regional Governor Maksym Kozytskyy reported “two rocket attacks on a substation” in the region, and several districts of the region are without power. According to Governor Oleksiy Kuleba, the entire Kyiv region is now without electricity.

State grid operator Ukrenergo said the Russian missile attack continued, but emergency shutdowns were already in place in all regions.

“This is a necessary step to protect the power grids against further technological accidents and to support the operation of the power system,” Ukrenergo said. Repairs begin when the air raid warning sirens stop.

A number of units at the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine were shut down on Wednesday due to a power outage during strikes, Ukraine’s Energoatom nuclear power plant said.

“Everything is fine with the train station. There is no place where electricity can be generated,” an Energoatom spokesperson said of the plant in the Mykolayiv region.

A local official said units were also not active at the Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plant in western Ukraine.

“The units stop. There is no electricity, no water and possibly no heating,” Oleksandr Suprunyuk, the mayor of the town of Netishyn near the plant, wrote on his Facebook page.

The latest attack came hours after Ukrainian authorities said an overnight missile attack destroyed a hospital maternity ward in southern Ukraine and killed a two-day-old baby.

After the night strike in Vilniansk, near the city of Zaporizhia, the baby’s mother and a doctor were pulled alive from the rubble.

The region’s governor said the missiles were Russian. The strike adds to the terrible toll that hospitals and other medical facilities – and their patients and staff – have taken during the Russian invasion, which enters its tenth month this week.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the attacks as Russian “terror and murder”.

First Lady Olena Zelenska wrote on Twitter that a two-day-old boy died in the strike and expressed her condolences. ‘Terrible pain. We will never forget and we will never forgive,” she said.

A Russian missile hit the maternity ward of the Vilnianska hospital near Zaporizhia early Wednesday morning. Pictured: Firefighters search through the rubble of a building, November 23

Efforts by medical workers have been hampered by repeated Russian attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure in recent weeks.

The situation is even worse in the southern city of Kherson, from which Russia withdrew almost two weeks ago after months of occupation that cut power and water lines.

Many doctors in the city work in the dark, cannot use elevators to transport patients to the operating room, and work with headlamps, cell phones, and flashlights. In some hospitals, important equipment no longer works.

“Fans don’t work, X-ray machines don’t work… There is only one portable ultrasound machine and we carry it all the time,” said Volodymyr Malishchuk, chief doctor at a children’s hospital in the city.

On Tuesday, after attacks in Kherson seriously injured 13-year-old Artur Voblikov, a team of health workers carefully maneuvered the sedated boy up six flights of narrow stairs to an operating room to amputate his left arm.

Malishchuk said three children wounded by Russian attacks had been hospitalized this week, half the number previously hospitalized in the nine months since the invasion began. Picking up shrapnel found in the stomach of a 14-year-old boy, he said children come with severe head injuries and ruptured internal organs.

Artur’s mother, Natalia Voblikova, sat with her daughter in the dark hospital, waiting for the end of his operation.

“You (Russians) can’t even name animals, because animals take care of themselves,” Woblikova said, wiping tears from her eyes. “But the children… Why kill children?”

In Strasbourg, France, the European Parliament overwhelmingly backed a resolution naming Russia a state sponsor of terrorism for its invasion and actions in Ukraine. The non-binding but highly symbolic resolution was adopted by 494 votes to 58, with 48 abstentions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the vote. “Russia must be isolated and held accountable at all levels to end its longstanding policy of terror in Ukraine and around the world,” he wrote on Twitter.

After Wednesday’s attacks, Zelenskyi’s senior aide Andriy Yermak wrote on Telegram: “The terrorists immediately confirm that they are terrorists – they launch rockets. Naive losers.’