Separately, the United Nations announced the extension of an agreement to safeguard Ukraine’s war-disrupted grain and fertilizer exports. The deal was due to expire soon, renewing fears of a global food crisis if exports from one of the world’s biggest grain producers were blocked. Although all sides agreed to extend the deal, air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine on Thursday. At least four people were killed and more than a dozen others were injured in the drone and missile attacks, including one that hit a residential building, authorities said. Kremlin forces suffered a series of setbacks on the ground, the latest being the loss of the southern city of Kherson. In the face of these defeats, Russia has increasingly resorted to airstrikes targeting energy infrastructure and other political targets in areas of Ukraine it does not hold. Thursday’s salvo appeared to be on a smaller scale than the nationwide barrage of more than 100 missiles and drones that knocked out power to 10 million people earlier this week. Tuesday’s strikes were described by Ukraine’s energy minister as the biggest barrage so far of the nearly 9-month-old incursion into the crippled power grid. It also resulted in a missile being fired into Poland, killing two people. Authorities are still trying to determine where the missile came from, with early indications that a Ukrainian air defense system was intended to counter Russian shelling. Polish President Andriy Duda visited the site of the missile crash on Thursday and expressed his understanding of Ukraine’s plight. “It’s an extremely difficult situation for them and there are big emotions, there’s also a lot of stress,” Duda said. The new bombings come as many Ukrainians face the inconvenience of regular blackouts and heating failures as winter approaches. Light snow dusted the capital on Thursday, where the temperature dropped below zero. The city’s military administration said air defenses shot down at least two cruise missiles and five Iranian-made explosive drones. In eastern Ukraine, Russia “launched a massive attack on natural gas production infrastructure,” the head of state energy company Naftogaz, Oleksiy Chernishov, said in a statement. He did not give details. Russian strikes also hit the central city of Dnipro and Ukraine’s southern Odesa region for the first time in weeks. And critical infrastructure was also hit in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, in the Izyum district, injuring three workers, the regional administration said. The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, called the strikes on energy targets “naive cowardly tactics of losers” in a Telegram post on Thursday. “Ukraine has already resisted extremely difficult blows of the enemy, which did not lead to the results that the Russian cowards hoped for,” Yermak wrote. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted on Telegram a video of what he said was one of the explosions in Dnipro. Video from a dash cam shows a fiery explosion engulfing a rainy road. “This is another confirmation from Dnipro how terrorists want peace,” Zelensky wrote, referring to Kremlin forces. “The peaceful city and people’s desire to live their ordinary lives. Going to work, to their affairs. Rocket attack!” Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of Dnipropetrovsk region, said a large fire broke out in Dnipro after strikes in the city hit an industrial target. At least 23 people were injured in the attack, Reznichenko said. Russia’s defense ministry said its strikes in Dnipropetrovsk hit a factory that produces military rocket engines. In the Odesa region, an infrastructure target was hit, governor Maksym Marchenko said on Telegram, warning of the threat of a “massive missile across the entire territory of Ukraine.” Elsewhere, a Russian raid that hit a residential building killed at least four people overnight in Vilnia, in the southern region of Zaporizhia. Rescuers combed the rubble for any other victims, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a senior official in Ukraine’s presidential office. Officials in Poltava, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi and Rivne regions urged residents to stay in bomb shelters. The impact of the war was felt far beyond Ukraine, perhaps most significantly in global food markets. Ukraine and Russia are among the world’s largest grain exporters, and Russia is also a major fertilizer producer. There have been concerns in recent days about the fate of a UN-brokered deal with Turkey to address disruptions to those exports that was due to expire on Saturday. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres confirmed it was extended for four months. In addition to ensuring the safe passage of Ukrainian exports, Guterres said in a statement that the United Nations is also “fully committed” to removing obstacles that have blocked the export of food and fertilizers from Russia. The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed the extension, and Zelensky called it “a key decision in the global fight against the food crisis.”
Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war at
