Ukrainian officials and media reported that Russia attacked the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro with missiles and drones on Tuesday, causing damage to a power station and cutting off water supplies to some residents.
The Ukrainian Air Force reported via the messaging app Telegram that the city, which has just under one million inhabitants, was attacked by one missile and four groups of drones approaching from the south, east, and north.
“DTEK,” Ukraine’s largest private energy service provider, stated that a thermal power station suffered significant damage. The company added that there were no injuries.
The company did not specify the location of the power station, but Dnipro’s water utility company mentioned on Telegram that “due to the power outage,” water supplies were partially suspended.
Ukrainian media also confirmed that a power station in Dnipro was attacked.
Boris Filatov, the mayor of Dnipro, acknowledged that infrastructure was bombed, but did not provide further details.
Russia and Ukraine have intensified their aerial attacks away from the front line in recent months, targeting each other’s critical energy infrastructure, military facilities, and transport systems.
Confrontation between Russia and the West at the UN Security Council
Politically, Russia accused Western countries of undermining agreements that could have prevented the war in Ukraine. However, the United States and its allies directly blamed Moscow for the war, stating, “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of his smaller neighbor.”
Days before the second anniversary of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia once again attributed the war to the failure to implement the 2015 Minsk agreements, blaming the West for “sabotaging Kyiv.”
The Minsk agreements aimed to resolve the conflict between Ukraine and the Russian-backed separatists that erupted in April 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea and supported separatists in the industrial Donbas region with a Russian-speaking majority.
During a Security Council meeting on Monday, called by Russia to mark the seventh anniversary of the signing of the Minsk peace plan – mediated by France and Germany – Nebenzia described Ukraine and Western countries’ claims that Russia refused to implement the agreements as “completely unfounded.”
He said, “If the Minsk agreements had been implemented, the tragedy that occurred in Ukraine today would not have happened, a tragedy in which the United States and the West are complicit while trying to achieve geopolitical goals at the expense of Ukraine and the lives of its people.”
Robert Wood, the Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, accused Russia of presenting “grand myths and misinformation as part of its efforts to rewrite history after invading a sovereign state, in violation of the UN Charter.”
He said, “Moscow has called us today to express regret for the very violence it started, fueled, and continues to commit daily.”
Wood noted that Russia negotiated and signed the Minsk agreements but “ignored all the commitments it had made.”
