Romania denied an earlier claim that a Russian missile had crossed into its air space, an incident that risked escalating tensions with NATO as the Kremlin launched a barrage of attacks across Ukraine.
(Bloomberg) — Romania denied an earlier claim that a Russian missile had crossed into its air space, an incident that risked escalating tensions with NATO as the Kremlin launched a barrage of attacks across Ukraine.
Romania’s Defense Ministry said authorities detected an aerial target on Friday, most likely a cruise missile, launched from a Russian warship in the Black Sea near Crimea. The object reentered Ukrainian airspace after crossing into neighboring Moldova without breaching Romanian territory, it said.
The ministry in the NATO member state said it re-routed two MiG fighter jets conducting a flight exercise to increase “reaction options.” Minutes later, “the situation was clarified and the two jets resumed their initial mission,” the ministry said.
Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi earlier said that two Russian Kalibr missiles entered Ukraine after crossing through neighboring Moldova and Romania.
The rockets were part of a new barrage that began with early-morning drone attacks, Ukrainian officials said. Missiles followed, including some fired from vessels in the Black Sea, prompting reports of multiple explosions across the country.
Ukrainian Air Defence downed 10 rockets over Kyiv and at least one in the western Lviv region, mayors Vitali Klitschko and Andriy Sadovyi said on Telegram. In Kyiv, a missile damaged power grid and in Lviv an unexploded rocket fell near a bus stop in one of the districts.
Authorities in the northeastern Kharkiv region reported several missile strikes that wounded at least seven people and disrupted electricity supplies in parts of the country’s second-largest city. The mayor of Lviv, near the Polish border, said air defenses shot down missiles just hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met with his counterpart, Andrzej Duda in the eastern Polish city of Rzeszow.
The attack caused new disruptions to Ukraine’s energy grid, according to national operator Ukrenergo. Missiles hit thermal and hydro generation facilities, as well as high-voltage infrastructure in six regions, Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said on Facebook. The most difficult situation was in the Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv and Kmelnytskyi regions, he said, even as the integrity of the country’s energy system held up.
Ukraine’s Air Force downed at least five drones and five Kalibr missiles, it said.
The new bombardment was the 14th since October, when Russia launched a campaign to attack civilian targets. It also came as Zelenskiy made a tour of European Union countries, in which he appealed to allies for heavier weapons, including fighter jets, to beat back Russia’s invasion.
–With assistance from Michael Winfrey.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.