A Russian bombing this Wednesday left at least 19 dead and more than 60 injured in Ternopil, a city in western Ukraine. Most of the casualties occurred when Russian-launched missiles hit two residential buildings early in the morning. The tragedy comes just five days after another Russian bombing killed seven people in Kiev.
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russia used more than 480 Shahed bomb drones and 48 missiles. These are similar figures to those of the bombing of the capital on 14 November. In both cases, according to regional authorities, the enemy’s main target was the energy sector infrastructure. This happened in the western Ukrainian provinces of Lviv and Ivano Frankivsk.
The Russian army followed the usual tactics in these long-range attacks: in the first hours of the operation they sent waves of Shaheds to saturate Ukrainian anti-aircraft defenses, and in the last phase of the bombing Russian planes launched cruise missiles.
The Ukrainian Air Force believes that a Kh-101 cruise missile caused the tragedy in Ternopil. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry has warned that the number of victims could increase as rescue efforts continue amid the rubble of destroyed buildings.
Russia’s new campaign to destroy the electricity grid is causing daily power outages in Ukrainian cities for up to 12 hours. Ternopil’s military administration also asked citizens to close the windows of their homes because the bombing caused a large chlorine leak in an industrial area of the city.
Alarm in Poland
The proximity of the attacked regions to the Polish border forced two Polish Air Force fighter jets to take off due to the possibility of Russian missiles and drones entering their airspace. This operation is the usual one when Russian bombings occur near Poland. The same was done by planes of the Romanian Air Force, which has its borders near the affected Ukrainian provinces. Moldova’s Ministry of Defense reported that a Russian Shahed drone crossed its airspace this morning.
The moment of greatest tension between NATO and the Kremlin occurred last September, when the Polish army shot down several Russian drones that entered its airspace. The Atlantic Alliance has strengthened its protection of Poland and Spain has also committed to sending two fighter planes to the country starting in November, with the mission of intercepting a potential Russian attack.
Tensions between Warsaw and Moscow increased after the Polish government on Monday accused the Kremlin of being behind the sabotage of a railway line on its territory. The Polish authorities assure that the perpetrators of the attack are a group of Ukrainian citizens hired by the Russian secret services.
