Photo: Sergey Korovainy
On the morning of October 10, Russia launched a massive shelling of almost all non-occupied regions of Ukraine. By 10 am Kyiv time, 75 missiles were fired, 41 of them were shot down. This was announced by the Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny. The attack continues. By 11 am, Deputy Defense Minister Anna Malyar, citing the General Staff, said that 83 missiles had already been fired at the cities of Ukraine, 43 of them had been shot down by air defense.
The first wave of attacks on civilian targets
The first strikes fell on civilian targets – the rocket flew, for example, at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. There was also a hit in the playground on the territory of Shevchenko Park opposite the university.
Another blow fell on the bicycle and pedestrian bridge, which is popularly called the glass "Klitschko bridge". He received minor damage, a rocket fell next to him.
About 10 strikes were inflicted on Zaporozhye. Destroyed multi-storey residential building. So far, it is known about one dead and five injured, including a child. In Kiev, according to preliminary data, 8 people were killed and 24 wounded as a result of the shelling of the Shevchenkovsky district, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine reports .
In Kyiv, people hide in the subway. Some lines were stopped, stations turned into shelters. By 13:20, train traffic has been restored on all metro lines, Vitali Klitschko said.
Shelling of energy infrastructure
They fired at Kyiv (including the center), Lvov, Ternopil, Zhytomyr, Khmelnitsky, Poltava, Kirovograd region. After the first wave of attacks, the second began. As military expert Leonid Dmitriev explained to The Insider, the targets of the second wave were energy infrastructure facilities. In particular, a thermal power plant in Lviv was damaged, the city is de-energized, there is no hot water, backup power generators are launched.
The Rivne nuclear power plant (Rivne region) was also attacked. According to The Insider, an Iranian kamikaze drone Shahed tried to attack the station, but was shot down – apparently, its target was a distribution station.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that power facilities throughout the country were damaged. According to Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal, 11 important infrastructure facilities in 8 regions and Kyiv were damaged. In the Kyiv region, there was a hit in CHPP-6. Kharkov was left without electricity.
Damaged Burshtynskaya TPP in Ivano-Frankivsk. From it comes the export of electricity to Europe – the TPP is located at the intersection of power lines connecting Ukraine with Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.
Interruptions with the Internet and mobile communications
A massive missile attack by the Russians led to interruptions in mobile Internet and in some places with mobile communications in different regions of the country, according to the State Service for Special Communications of Ukraine. The unstable operation of networks is associated with damage to the infrastructure of both the operators themselves and enterprises in the energy sector.
So far, both operators and emergency services are making every effort to restore power and stable mobile communications as soon as possible. The National Center for Operational and Technical Management of Telecommunications Networks (NCU) fixes interruptions in the operation of base stations of mobile operators in a number of regions of Ukraine. In particular, interruptions in the availability of mobile Internet were recorded in Khmelnitsky, Lviv, Poltava regions, Kharkov, Zhytomyr. There are still problems with the availability of mobile communications in a number of settlements.
Deployment of a grouping with Belarus
Alexander Lukashenko said that he and Putin agreed to deploy a joint regional group of troops. “If the threat level reaches the current level, we begin to use the Union State grouping,” Lukashenka said. According to him, the Belarusian troops will form the basis of the Belarusian-Russian regional grouping of troops.
He also repeated again that Ukraine is preparing to strike at Belarus. On the eve of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry summoned the Ambassador of Ukraine Igor Kizim and handed him a diplomatic note. It says that Ukraine is preparing a strike on Belarusian territory.
According to military expert Sergei Grabsky, it is unlikely that there will be any large-scale offensive from the territory of Belarus now. Analysts of the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT) also noted in an interview with The Insider that there are no signs of preparations for a full-fledged invasion from the territory of Belarus.
“The statement is not surprising given who we are dealing with,” says Grabsky. – There was never any doubt that they would create such a thing, and many exercises that were carried out testify to this. They created a command structure in advance. As for the immediate deployment of this grouping, for this it is necessary to repeat certain steps and concentrate a certain number of troops, but we do not see such a concentration. Now, on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, we see six battalion-tactical groups and a special forces detachment of Belarus in constant readiness. They are in the border area.
It is strategically advantageous to deploy this without even assuming a direct invasion, because Ukraine will keep a certain number of forces in this direction. This stretches the Ukrainian grouping and requires additional involvement of forces and means in order to at least monitor the border zone of a thousand kilometers.”
Russian reserves after shelling
According to CIT analysts, the Russian military will not be able to maintain such a rate of strikes for a long time, as they shoot more than they produce. “They spent most of it a long time ago, but they left a reserve even then. For special occasions. Here the case has come – we spent a little more stock.
According to a Russian military expert who asked to remain anonymous, Russia still has a lot of long-range high-precision weapons, so they will be hit for a long time at stationary targets – power plants, traction substations, industrial facilities. And there are few high-precision weapons of a tactical and operational-tactical level, and there are also problems with reconnaissance and target designation. Therefore, it is much more difficult for the Russian military to successfully attack mobile targets directly in the frontline zone – artillery installations, air defense systems, columns of heavy equipment.