Ukraine says it 'ran out of missiles' to stop Russian strike destroying power plant
A lack of air defence missiles prevented Ukraine from thwarting a Russian missile attack last week that destroyed the biggest power plant in the region around Kyiv, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said.
Trypilska thermal power plant was destroyed in a strike last month. It was the biggest energy facility near Kyiv and was built to have a capacity of 1,800 megawatts, more than the prewar needs of Ukraine’s biggest city. Other stations and imports have filled the gap for now but residents have been urged to save power.
“There were 11 missiles flying. We destroyed the first seven, and four (remaining) destroyed Trypillia. Why? Because there were zero missiles. We ran out of missiles to defend Trypillia,” Zelenskiy said in an interview with PBS.
It’s a lot to preserve ourselves. It’s very difficult for us. We are fighting against a large army. They don’t care about their soldiers’ lives. They’re not training them. They’re not as trained as our soldiers.
But there’s a lot of them. They have an unlimited number of people and a lot of shells. They use thousands of drones against us. Tell me, please, how can you fight against these thousands if you don’t have weapons to take them down? They have aircraft taking off from Crimea and engaging us at a distance of over 300 kilometers. It could be over 300, 400, 500 kilometers, depending on how deep they’re targeting from Crimea.
How can we destroy those? The plan is very simple. It’s very clear. It exists. There is a specific weapon that we need to advance. There’s a specific weapon to defend the skies. This plan exists. Besides, all the partners have it in their hands. This is the plan for what we really need.
