Russia avenges Ukrainian incursion with massive shelling across the country

Russia took revenge for the alleged Ukrainian incursion into Russian territory with a new massive bombardment that hit military and civilian targets throughout the country, an attack in which the Russian army used hypersonic weaponry extensively.

"In response to the terrorist actions organised by the Kiev regime on 2 March in the Bryansk region, the Russian army launched a massive retaliatory attack," Russian Defence Ministry spokesman General Igor Konashenkov said in his daily report.

At the time, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, denied any involvement by Kiev in the alleged sabotage.

According to official Ukrainian sources, at least nine people were killed in the massive shelling launched last night by the Russian army against a dozen regions of the neighbouring country.

The shelling killed at least five people in the western region of Lviv, where a missile hit a residential area, and another civilian in Dnipropetrovsk in the southeast.

In the partly Russian-controlled southern region of Kherson, shelling killed three people, two at a public transport stop and one in a shop.

The attack also hit the capital, Kiev, where two people were wounded and infrastructure, urban real estate and housing blocks were damaged.

The Russians also hammered other major cities in the country, including Kharkov, where eleven missiles left the largest city in eastern Ukraine without electricity, water and heating; Mykolaiv (south) and Odessa (Black Sea).

In total, according to Kiev, the Russian army launched 81 missiles, both from aircraft and ships in the Black, Azov and Caspian Seas.

Konashenkov said that Moscow used long-range precision weaponry fired from the air to hit military infrastructure and industry, as well as the civilian energy network.

This was confirmed by Kiev, which estimated the number of Kinzhal hypersonic missiles launched against Ukrainian territory at six.

Kinzhal (Dagger in Russian) are air-launched missiles with a range of more than 2,000 kilometres and a speed ten times faster than sound.

This high-precision hypersonic missile, impossible for Ukrainian anti-aircraft batteries to shoot down, can carry both nuclear warheads and conventional payloads.

Due to the Russian attacks, Ukraine's Zaporiyia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, was completely shut down for several hours, forcing some 20 diesel generators to be switched on, although it was connected to the main power grid hours later.

Ukraine's state-owned Energoatom said the international community must do everything possible to ensure that "the occupying forces withdraw from the facility and return it to full Ukrainian control".

The demilitarisation of the zone was supported on Wednesday by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres during his visit to Kiev, and rejected today by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who accused the Portuguese diplomat of a lack of neutrality.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned that the safety of the plant, which has been put into emergency mode for the sixth time in the last year, is being "played with dice" and that "one day our luck will run out".

"What are we doing? , How can we sit in this room this morning and allow this to happen? This cannot continue," IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi warned during an address to the UN agency's Board of Governors.

Meanwhile, the bitter battle for control of Bakhmut continues. As if there were any doubt, Ukrainian army commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said that it is becoming increasingly important for Kiev to defend the stronghold, even if NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg denies that its fall into Russian hands could be "a turning point in the war".

"Every day that we defend the city buys us time to prepare reserves and future offensive operations. At the same time, in their fight for this fortress, the enemy is losing the most ready and capable part of their army - Wagner's assault units," Syrskyi said in a statement.

Western intelligence estimates that in the assault on Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, Wagner's mercenaries, who would control half the city, suffered between 20,000 and 30,000 casualties. According to Russian military bloggers, the Gazprom Neft oil company is setting up its own volunteer unit, where the pay would be higher than that offered by Wagner, whose founder, Sergey Prigozhin, is at odds with the Defence Ministry and General Staff.