Russian Federation (RF) units launched another overnight round of bombardments of civilian homes and businesses in Ukraine’s south, as officials in Mykolaiv struggled to restore clean water supplies to the port city’s residents, official and news reports said on Tuesday, April 19.
RF heavy rockets hit targets in Mykolaiv’s eastern districts throughout the night. Social media images posted Tuesday morning showed, at some locations, craters deep enough to bury an automobile, blasted in apartment building courtyards. News reports showed emergency response teams treating the injured. According to Ganna Zamazeeva, a Mykolaiv city council member, at least ten persons were hospitalized.
A statement from the Mykolaiv water utility Mykolaivvodokanal said that, due to the heavy bombardments and destruction to pipes and pump stations, water supply to homes and businesses was fully interrupted.
Ever since early March, when RF units approached Mykolaiv closely enough to fire artillery at the town, RF artillery has seemingly targeted city infrastructure, particularly public utilities like power and water. According to Mykolaivodakanal, with few exceptions homes and businesses in the city on Monday morning had no access to indoor clean water deliveries since April 12.
Mykolaiv defense command head Vitaly Kim in a statement said local authorities were transporting clean water to residential neighborhoods in trucks, and at some urban locations tapping Artesian wells, to keep people supplied with drinking water. News images of Mykolaiv’s Dnipro River waterfront – in the summer a resort area popular with local sunbathers – showed people drawing water and carrying it off in containers and automobiles.
Outside Mykolaiv, RF artillery units overnight hammered the southern town Hulyaipole with incendiary white phosphorus munitions, setting fires and damaging buildings, said Ivan Aref’ev, a representative of the Zaporizhia military administration, in a statement. The use of burning agents like white phosphorus – a chemical that will set human flesh on fire – is banned by the Geneva Convention if used against civilian targets.
Also, hit RF shelling was the adjacent town Oleksandrivka, where Ukraine Armed Forces (UAF) units repelled an armored vehicle attack, a Monday Joint Forces South (JFS) statement said.
Ukrainian officials led by President Volodymyr Zelensky have accused the Kremlin of targeting Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure in an attempt to ruin Ukraine’s economy and to browbeat the Ukrainian people into surrender. At practically all levels of Ukrainian society, the response has been defiance.
