Last time I checked, Moscow has electricity and heat.

The idea that Western media sees any path toward a Ukrainian victory is madness. Apparently, the Russians aren't running out of missiles to pick apart the infrastructure of Zelensky and slowly bring the nation to its knees.

Of course, if somebody bombed me, I'd try to bomb them back. That of course, isn't an option for Ukraine, who's hands are tied behind their back by the Western powers that supply them with arms and the threat of nuclear retaliation.

Russian Missile Strikes Knock Out Power in Ukrainian Cities

Barrage is one of the most intense since Russia invaded Ukraine in February

By Thomas Grove, WSJ

Updated Nov. 23, 2022 7:13 pm ET

Russia unleashed one of its biggest barrages of missiles across Ukraine since the start of the war Wednesday, with strikes on critical infrastructure cutting off power and water supplies in the capital and several other cities, Ukrainian authorities said.

The strikes killed six people and wounded more than 30, officials said. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said about 70 Kalibr cruise missiles were launched mostly from Russian aircraft inside Russia and 51 were destroyed by Ukraine. Twelve cruise missiles were shot down in the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, the ministry said.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that there was no electricity in some parts of the capital and that water supplies had been suspended.

Power outages forced authorities to temporarily shut down all three nuclear-power plants Ukraine currently controls, officials said, though there was no apparent damage to the facilities themselves. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general, Rafael Grossi, said the Zaporizhzhia nuclear-power plant also lost access to external electricity and is relying on its emergency diesel generators for power. Parts of neighboring Moldova also suffered power cuts, the country’s president, Maia Sandu, said.

In Lviv in western Ukraine, the entire city was without electricity and trams were halted, according to Mayor Andriy Sadovyi. Ukrainian officials said power had also been cut in the cities of Odessa, Dnipro and Khmelnytskyi.

Ukrainian authorities opened up emergency shelters offering food and heating in different parts of the country, the president’s office said.

“Russia must be isolated at all levels and held accountable in order to end its longstanding policy of terrorism in Ukraine and across the globe,” said President Volodymyr Zelensky after the European Parliament passed a resolution to recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. The vote is nonbinding on the European Union and its member states.

The strikes followed separate assaults in Ukraine’s east and south earlier Wednesday, including an attack on a maternity ward in Vilnyansk in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia. Mr. Zelensky said the strike was intentional.

“As a result of a missile attack on the maternity ward of Vilnyansk hospital, an infant died and a woman was injured,” he said. “There are probably still people under the rubble.”

Wednesday’s strikes appear to be part of a Russian strategy of targeting critical infrastructure in Ukraine to knock out power and other supplies as the winter freeze sets in, a tactic that analysts say is aimed at eroding Ukrainians’ resilience as the Kremlin attempts to regain the initiative on the battlefield.

The barrage is one of several that Russia has launched in recent months. In the most recent, on Nov. 17, Russia pounded Ukraine’s cities with 96 missiles, killing 15 people and battering the infrastructure of the likes of Kyiv and Odessa.

In a hardening of international attitudes toward the war, Pope Francis on Wednesday issued his strongest condemnation to date of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, linking it to Joseph Stalin‘s 1930s terror famine, which the pontiff described as genocide.

The intensity of the strikes in recent weeks has hit Russian missile stockpiles. Analysts say Russia has been burning through equipment, ammunition and weaponry at rates that have raised questions about how effectively and for how long it can sustain its war against Ukraine.

Iranian-made suicide drones have been a central part of Russia’s strategy in Ukraine in recent months, but Moscow hasn’t used them in its attacks in nearly a week, the U.K. Defense Ministry said Wednesday.

“Russia has likely very nearly exhausted its current stock, but will probably seek resupply,” the ministry said.

Meanwhile, the U.K. announced its first delivery of Sea King helicopters and 10,000 artillery rounds to help bolster Ukraine’s war effort.

“Our support for Ukraine is unwavering,” U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said. “These additional artillery rounds will help Ukraine to secure the land it has reclaimed from Russia in recent weeks.”

The U.S. announced Wednesday an additional $400 million in military support for Ukraine, including more munitions for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or Nasams, that the U.S. has provided to Kyiv. Wednesday’s package brings the total U.S. military assistance for Ukraine to about $19.7 billion under the Biden administration.

“As Russia struggles on the battlefield, it is increasingly turning to horrific attacks against the Ukrainian people,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said. “The United States and our allies and partners will continue to provide Ukraine with what it needs to defend itself including air defense.”

The hospital strike echoes a Russian attack that hit a maternity unit in Mariupol, southern Ukraine, early in the war, an assault that marked a shift in Moscow’s tactics toward hitting civilian targets.

Ukrainian troops that had been part of the advance into the strategically important southern city of Kherson earlier this month have been freed up after Russia’s withdrawal from the only regional capital it had seized since the beginning of the war.

Ukraine’s military has boosted efforts to reclaim more parts of the country’s south and its forces have begun an assault on the Kinburn Spit, a strip of land jutting into the sea south of Mykolaiv that has been occupied for months by Russian forces, cutting off access to the port city.

Kyiv’s forces have recently also put the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea more squarely in their sights. Russian officials said that Ukraine launched a drone attack on the key port city of Sevastopol, which hosts the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

Ukraine’s General Staff on Wednesday said Russia’s military was carrying out training for around 30 soldiers on a Sevastopol military base to use Russian and Iranian drones.

Five Ukrainian drones were shot down, the city’s governor, Mikhail Razvozhaev, said on his Telegram channel Tuesday evening. The first two drones tried to attack the nearby Balaclava thermal power plant, but no damage was inflicted, he said.

Maritime traffic in Sevastopol was temporarily suspended following the attack, local authorities told the Russian state-controlled TASS news agency.

Separately, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said Wednesday on Twitter that the legislature had been hit by a “sophisticated cyberattack” and that a pro-Kremlin group had claimed responsibility. Ms. Metsola said the parliament’s IT experts were “pushing back” against the attack and protecting the parliament’s systems. The attack came just hours after the European Parliament had voted overwhelmingly on the resolution declaring Russia to be a state sponsor of terrorism.