In just over one week of Russian airstrikes targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure, 30% of the power plants in the country have been destroyed, President Vladimir Zelensky has claimed.
The devastation has caused “massive blackouts across the country,” he added in a tweet posted on Tuesday morning. He concluded that there is “no space left for negotiations” with the government of his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
Putin announced the shift in the military operation in Ukraine on Monday of last week, just after Russian forces launched massive long-range missile strikes across Ukraine. He accused Kiev of masterminding several “terrorist attacks” targeting key Russian infrastructure over the past several months, including the Crimean Bridge bombing attack.
The Russian president said Kiev’s tactics justified a response in kind, as he confirmed that Moscow now considers Ukrainian energy infrastructure to be a legitimate target for military attacks.
Days earlier, a massive explosion on the bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland claimed three civilian lives and caused significant damage to the road traffic section of the bridge. Moscow claimed that Ukraine was behind it, while some officials in Kiev celebrated the incident.
Russian law enforcement has since claimed that it established how the bomb, which was disguised as construction material, made its way from Odessa, Ukraine, to Russia through a number of transit nations. Investigators claim Ukrainian military intelligence was behind the plot.
In the first two days of Russia’s missile strikes, around 30% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure was destroyed, the country’s energy minister, German Galushchenko, told CNN last week. He noted that it was a major shift in how Russia has used its military force against his country.