Ukraine claims to have been the target of bombardments on the night of February 15 to 16. According to the Air Force, 32 missiles were launched overnight by Russia from planes and a ship in the Black Sea, half of which were shot down. "Unfortunately, there were impacts in the North and West, as well as in the Dnipropetrovsk and Kirovograd regions," Ukrainian presidential administration chief Andriy Yermak said on Telegram. These strikes killed at least one civilian and destroyed several homes.
The governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Serguiï Lyssak, released images of fire trucks in action in a neighborhood where individual houses were destroyed and damaged. At least one person, a 79-year-old woman, was killed. The governor of the Lviv region (west), Maxime Kozytsky, indicated that a strike had hit "essential infrastructure" without causing any casualties. The fire was brought under control.
Since October, Russia has been carrying out a campaign of massive bombardments of essential infrastructure in Ukraine in an attempt to deprive the population, in the middle of winter, of electricity and heating. Moscow is also suspected of preparing a new major offensive at the end of winter or spring, after months of military setbacks and a year after the start of its invasion of Ukraine.
Thursday, February 16, the boss of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner estimated that Bakhmout, epicenter of the fighting in eastern Ukraine, will not be conquered by Moscow before "March or April", believing that the slowness of Russian advances was due to the " monstrous military bureaucracy". "I think it's March or April. To take Bakhmout, you have to cut off all supply routes,” Yevgeny Prigozhin said in videos posted overnight Wednesday-Thursday on Telegram.
