{"id":258554,"date":"2022-09-12T07:33:29","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T07:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=258554"},"modified":"2022-09-13T07:07:43","modified_gmt":"2022-09-13T07:07:43","slug":"russia-targets-infrastructure-in-retaliation-to-rapid-ukraine-gains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=258554","title":{"rendered":"Russia targets infrastructure in retaliation to rapid Ukraine gains"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lorenzon Tondo, Isobel Koshiw, Dan Sabbagh and Shaun Walker \u2013 The Guardian Sept 12, 2022<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Russia targeted infrastructure facilities in central and eastern Ukraine<\/a> on Sunday evening in a response to a dramatic Ukrainian counter-offensive in Kharkiv province that has reshaped the war and left Moscow reeling.<\/p>\n

The mayor of Kharkiv city, Ihor Terekhov, said a strike had knocked out power and water to much of the city, in what he described as an act of \u201crevenge\u201d by Russia<\/a> for Ukraine\u2019s recent battlefield successes. There were reports of blackouts in Dnipro, Poltava and other eastern cities, potentially affecting millions of civilians.<\/p>\n

Volodymyr Zelenskiy blamed \u201cRussian terrorists\u201d for the blackouts. \u201cNo military facilities [were attacked],\u201d the Ukrainian president said in a statement on social media. \u201cThe goal is to deprive people of light and heat.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a message on Telegram<\/a> on Sunday night, he said the Kremlin would not succeed in breaking the Ukrainian people, and appeared to address the Russian leadership, asking: \u201cDo you still think that we are \u2018one people\u2019? Do you still think that you can scare us, break us, make us make concessions? You really did not understand anything?\u201d<\/p>\n

In an early evening update on the military situation, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukrainian forces, said Ukrainian soldiers had regained control of about 3,000 sq km of territory since the start of September, and were approaching the border in the country\u2019s north-east.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Kharkiv direction, we began to advance not only to the south and east, but also to the north. There are 50km to go to the state border [with Russia],\u201d Zaluzhnyi said.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainians have retaken the rail hub of Kupiansk, 60 miles east of Kharkiv, and are in the process of seizing Izium, which was being abruptly abandoned by the Russians whose defence ministry said their forces were regrouping.<\/p>\n

Then on Sunday night, the country\u2019s military said it had seized checkpoints due north of Kharkiv city, on the Russian border, in an area separate from the breakthroughs of the past week, south-east and east of the industrial city.<\/p>\n

In an attempt to hit back, Russia launched strikes targeting the power grid on Sunday that plunged Kharkiv and other areas into darkness. Ukraine\u2019s leadership has long feared that attacks on the grid could take place in the run-up to winter.<\/p>\n

In Sumy province in the north-east, the governor urged residents to unplug electrical devices. \u201cElectric tension has fallen in the network through the region,\u201d Dmytro Zhyvytsky wrote on the Telegram messaging app. \u201cI recommend disconnecting electrical devices as much as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Officials in Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk and Poltava regions said power was restored shortly after, but Kharkiv was still in darkness as midnight approached. Mykhailo Podolyak, a top Zelenskiy aide, said the city\u2019s CHPP-5 electricity station had been hit.<\/p>\n

The Russian strikes come after several days of striking Ukrainian gains. According to the Institute for the Study of War, a US thinktank, Ukraine has retaken more territory in five days than Russia had taken since April in the lightning counteroffensive, whose success has alarmed vocal supporters.<\/p>\n

Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-appointed leader of Chechnya, criticised the military<\/a> for the battlefield setbacks and said he might have to raise his concerns with president Vladimir Putin if the strategy did not change within a day or two.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will be forced to speak with the leadership of the defence ministry and the leadership of the country to explain the real situation on the ground to them,\u201d the nationalist leader said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very interesting situation. It\u2019s astounding, I would say,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s leadership has said little about the fast-developing military situation. But defence ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov claimed in a statement the Russian retreat was in fact a \u201cregrouping of forces\u201d in Izium and nearby to strengthen defence lines in the neighbouring Donetsk region.<\/p>\n

On Sunday night, Ukrainian military intelligence claimed that the general commanding Russia\u2019s western army group has been sacked in the wake of the retreat. It reported on its Telegram channel that Gen Roman Berdnikov has been replaced after only 17 days in his post.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, as the disastrous news for Russia from the front trickled through, Putin was busy opening a huge observation wheel in a Moscow park as part of celebrations for Moscow Day. Military bloggers sharply criticised him for going ahead with the celebrations and making no reference to the war.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contrary to Western MSM disinformation, the Russian military has thus far carefully avoided striking civil infrastructure in eastern Ukraine. Resulting in slower advances. However, the Ukrainian Army\u2019s recent advances could prompt Moscow to consider a more gloves-off approach <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[91,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-russia","category-ukraine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=258554"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258613,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258554\/revisions\/258613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=258554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=258554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=258554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}