Anti-aircraft alerts sounded across Ukraine this Friday after 10 a.m. local time (an hour less in mainland Spain). The country has experienced its fourteenth massive bombing since Moscow launched an offensive against Ukraine’s energy grid last October. Dozens of missiles were fired by the Russian Black Sea Fleet and by occupied eastern Ukraine. Friday’s bombings came in different phases and alarms continued to sound across the country in the early afternoon. The attacks came a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a trip to the European Union (Paris and Brussels) and the United Kingdom (London) to demand more military support from his western allies.
The Russian offensive has created a situation of diplomatic tension between Ukraine and its partners. Valeri Zaluzhni, supreme commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, reported that two Russian missiles crossed the airspace of Moldova and Romania, a NATO and EU member state, on Friday morning. Launched by the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the two Kalibr cruise missiles were aimed at Ukraine’s western provinces. But the Romanian authorities have denied the information provided by the Ukrainian commander-in-chief, stating that their radars did not identify the Kalibr on their territory, although they detected their passage through Moldova. This country, which, unlike Romania, is neither a member of the EU nor NATO, has confirmed that it has discovered the Calibr in its country and has called the Russian ambassador for consultations.
Bucharest denies Zaluzhni
Bucharest has strongly denied Zaluzhni: “The air surveillance system of the Romanian Air Force has detected an air target launched from the Black Sea by a Russian Federation ship near the Crimean Peninsula, most likely a cruise missile that has passed Ukraine and Moldova and is again entered Ukrainian airspace without ever being intercepted in Romanian airspace,” the Defense Ministry said. “The closest point of the target’s trajectory to Romanian airspace was recorded by radar systems about 35 kilometers northeast of the border,” it added.
The Romanian Ministry of Defense also only speaks of the threat of one missile and not two, as Zaluzhni reports. The discovery of the missile has put the Romanian Air Force on alert, in accordance with NATO protocols, “all standard procedures have been activated, from the moment the launch of the target was detected until this situation was fully clarified”. The Romanian government added that two aircraft from its air force were “diverted to the northern part of Romania to supplement response options” under NATO supervision.
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The only incident on NATO territory so far occurred last November, when an S-300 missile from the Ukrainian air defense system hit Poland, killing two people. Launched from the border regions with Poland, the S-300 was aimed at a Russian missile but missed its target, hitting a Polish community. On that occasion Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian military high command also claimed that the missile that fell in Poland was a Russian one, but both the Warsaw government and NATO denied this and confirmed that it was a Ukrainian S-300.
power supply
This morning’s shelling destroyed several power generation and supply centers in eastern, central and western Ukraine. Explosions can also be heard in the capital Kyiv. At least 20 Kalibr were fired from the Black Sea. The Ukrainian Air Force claims to have shot down 61 cruisers Kalibr, Kh-101 and Kh-555 during the night of February 9th until noon of this Friday. According to Kyiv, the rate of Russian cruise missile launches by Ukrainian defenses is over 70%. The interception rate for the Iranian-made Shahed bomb drones that were deployed on Thursday night is over 80 percent. Ukrainian Armed Forces spokesman Yuri Ignat commented at a press conference in January that the main objective of Russia’s use of the Shahed was to consume Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles and also to determine the location of its defense batteries.
Ukrainian military authorities have also reported that as many as 35 S-300 rockets were fired at Kharkov and Zaporizhia provinces this Friday. Russia has weaponized S-300 short-range anti-aircraft missiles to destroy ground targets, causing them to lose accuracy and causing heavy civilian casualties. An electrical infrastructure in the city of Kharkov was destroyed, leading to widespread power outages. Ukraine’s Energy Ministry has reported that six provinces in the country have suffered power outages. The most affected regions are Kharkov, Zaporizhia and Khmelnitskyi, the latter in the center of the country.
Zelenskyy returned yesterday from his second trip to Ukraine since the invasion began. The President of Ukraine visited the United Kingdom on Wednesday, where he received positive signals from the British government to receive fighter jets. Moscow has warned that it will respond to the possible delivery of fighter jets from NATO countries to Ukraine with severe reprisals. Zelensky also visited Paris, where he met French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The Ukrainian President appeared before the European Parliament and with EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday. Zelenskyi ended his European tour by meeting Polish President Andrzej Duda in Rzeszów, a town 70 kilometers from the border with Ukraine, where the airport for most Western Allied arms shipments arrives.
The Moldovan government resigns
Moldova’s Prime Minister Natalia Gavriliţa tendered her resignation this Friday after a year and a half in office after several weeks of rumors of her alleged resignation. His departure comes shortly after an official visit to Brussels, whom he thanked for his support for this former Soviet republic of nearly 2.6 million people. “As always, I have convinced myself that Moldova has many friends in Brussels. We are welcomed with open arms in the EU.”
Gravilita also addressed the opposition parties, referring to Russia: “If the government at home had had the same support and trust that we feel from our European partners, we could have gone further and faster.” at the head of this executive branch, it is time to announce my resignation from this position; I took over the government with an anti-corruption and pro-European mandate at a time when corruption schemes gripped all institutions and oligarchs felt invincible,” stressed the former prime minister, specifying that Moldova is entering a new phase in which the state’s priorities are energy security, fighting cybercrime and boosting economic growth.
For her part, President Maia Sandu thanked Gravilita for her “enormous sacrifice and dedication” to “lead the country at a time of so many crises” and especially being hit by the war in Ukraine. “We have stability, peace and development where others wanted war and bankruptcy,” asserted the pro-European politicians. Parliament Speaker Igor Grosu noted that he had experienced several unprecedented crises with economic, social and energy-related threats.
In the next few hours, Sandu will hold consultations with the parliamentary forces to form a new government. The Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) has a large majority in parliament to form another executive, 61 MPs out of 100 MPs. His government was marked by instability caused by the Russian offensive in neighboring Ukraine and the resignation of five ministers and deputy ministers.
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