Ukraine’s Kharkiv might turn out to be a “second Aleppo” if lawmakers in the United States do not approve further military assistance to assist Ukraine in acquiring the air defenses necessary to thwart Russian assaults from a distance.
Ihor Terekhov, mayor of the city, has issued a warning that Russia has shifted strategies to cut off the city’s electricity and scare the 1.3 million people who live there by attacking residential areas. He said aid is critical for them, referring to the US military assistance package, now stuck in Congress.
Russian assaults on March 22nd knocked down a power plant and all of its substations on the city’s eastern perimeter. Thirty miles southeast of the town, a second facility was also destroyed in the same assault. Another bombing strike this week knocked off power in the city, which is located around 30 miles from the Russian border. As a result, the metro was momentarily suspended. People in the city center reported that the supply was usually just a few hours each day, but things were better on the outskirts.
Children attend either subterranean schools or learn online to keep themselves secure. After last week’s attacks on storage facilities in the West, there were fears that the Russian military may shift its focus to gas distribution. The water supply remained unaffected. With the United States and the United Kingdom providing military assistance to Israel after it neutralized an Iranian air strike over the weekend, the demands for aid from Ukrainian officials to give Patriot air defense systems were brought into closer focus.
Regarding the allies’ defensive response, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that it demonstrated how effective unity in defending against terror can be when it is based on sufficient political will before drawing a parallel to Ukraine. Russian Shahed drones, which are Iranian-designed, sound identical to those over the Middle East, he said. If they do not intercept, ballistic missiles will have the same effect everywhere.
Kharkiv is still a bustling metropolis with many restaurants and cafés and some companies surviving despite the danger, and few citizens have gone since Russia ramped up its bombing campaign at the beginning of the year.
