Russian media mainstream and new age cheered a punishing round of missile and drone strikes hitting Ukrainian power grid and heating infrastructure on Friday.
Reports detailed damage done to more than a half dozen Ukrainian cities, triggering blackouts and public transportation shutdowns at some locations – but neither centrally-controlled Kremlin “news” outlets, nor enthusiastic “Z-bloggers” reported to news consumers across Russia’s eleven time zones the child killed and dozens of Ukrainians injured in the nighttime attacks.
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The official RIA-Novosti news agency led with details on damage done to power plants in Kyiv in a report headlined “Russian Armed Forces Conducted Massive Strikes on Power Facilities in Ukraine.”
The article wired to news outlets across Russia’s eleven time zones said that “Russian troops have struck power facilities in Ukraine, causing power outages in many cities. Kyiv experienced a blackout following explosions, with transportation in the capital experiencing a collapse.”
Retired Russian Air Force Captain Ilya Tumanov, in his popular blog Fighterbomber (550,000 followers) on Thursday, only hours before the strikes, said that Russian bombers and missiles would shut Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky’s “big mouth” by blasting Ukrainian power grid infrastructure.
In comments responding to the Ukrainian president’s warning on Oct. 9 that if Russia attacked Ukraine, then Ukraine would retaliate, Tumanov, the unofficial public spokesman for the Russian Air Force, seemed to predict the Russian attacks hitting only a few hours later: ”Apparently, some adjustments, step-backs, corrections, and hints from the higher-ups (i.e. Zelensky’s purported foreign bosses) have been made, and Zelensky’s ability to deliver has been reduced to two areas: blackouts and air strikes in Ukraine. Tomorrow (Friday), they may just be (Russian Air Force strikes) limited to blackouts and strikes on Chernihiv. Or maybe he just hasn’t gotten enough.”
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In the popular Dva Mayora Telegram military information channel (1.2 million followers), a Friday morning report on the Russian strikes written hours after the drones and missiles hit, by co-authors Dmitry Korzin and Ekaterina Korzina, said of the strikes:
“In Kyiv – parts of the capital are without power…Emergency power outage schedules have been introduced in the Sumy region…Residents of Zaporizhzhia have been urged to temporarily limit gas consumption; explosions were also heard in the Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Poltava regions. The bastards (Ukrainian media) are lying, they are exaggerating the damage to mislead our people (Russian strike planners) in the hopes that they (Russian strike planners) won’t repeat it. And at the same time, they are portraying themselves as victims in the West.”
The mainstream Rossiskaya Gazeta newspaper (140,000 print subscribers, 1,000,000+ online subscribers) said of the Friday attacks in its news feed: “A blackout and transport collapse occurred in Kyiv….Vladimir Putin: Russia is working on a Ukrainian settlement based on the fundamental principles discussed at the Alaska summit….(T)here is significant damage to the power grid….Kyiv is not responding to either the draft memorandum or Russia’s proposal for three working groups…
Ukrainian media reports a (T)ransport collapse in Kyiv after the power outage caused by overnight strikes. T
The Kremlin-run Ukraine news platform Ukraina.Ru, banned in Ukraine but accessible by VPN, headlined its report on the Friday strikes: “ Darkness has descended on Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk: Russian Armed Forces bombed and missiled Ukraine”
The article cataloged enthusiastically: “Another strike on Kyiv! Explosions in Kaniv. Multiple missiles hit targets in Kremenchuk! Another missile strike on Kryvyi Rih! At least two Kinzhal missiles hit a target in Dnipropetrovsk! Missile strike on Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Missile incoming at target in Kirovohrad Oblast!” The report said, inaccurately, the power situation in Kyiv was “dire” and that electricity service was off in more than 70% of the city.A link to a Thursday article interviewing “economic observer” Ivan Lizan asserted: “Powerful strikes by the Russian Armed Forces against the Ukrainian energy sector are a new factor in the war in Ukraine. De-electrification in full swing…This is not the first strike and certainly not the last.”
In fact, Russian air and missile forces have targeted Ukraine’s energy grid almost without a break since October 2022.
Widely read Russian “war correspondent” Simon Pegov (860,000 Telegram followers, 131,000 Vkontake followers) in his Friday morning report on the night’s strikes against Ukraine wrote:”Kyiv was left without power as a result of massive strikes by Russian forces on Ukraine’s power grid…
The attack has had critical consequences for the republic…The country’s power grid, having suffered an unprecedented blow, is teetering on the brink of collapse,” Pegov reported from an unspecified Russian location, possibly Moscow.
Russian politician Dmitriy Mevedev, former President and National Security Council Vice Chairman, in an Oct. 3 Telegram post called for the “total destruction of Ukraine’s energy grid (using) unrelenting strikes on transformers, generators, and thermal plants…“to plunge Kyiv into Stone Age suffering and make every Ukrainian regret resisting.”
Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, in a March 7 broadcast aired on the national Rossiya-1 television channel, called for Russia’s military to intensify strikes on Ukraine “to turn off the lights for good and make them [Ukrainians] freeze in the dark this winter…to break the will of the Ukrainian people.”