KYIV: Ukraine said on Saturday that Russia had carried out a “massive” overnight attack targeting energy infrastructure in the western and southern regions. At least seven people have been killed in strikes in other areas.
According to Ukraine’s military, Russia launched 16 cruise missiles from land, sea, and air, along with 13 attack drones, aiming at energy infrastructure across several regions. Air defenses managed to intercept all but four of them, it added.
The Ministry of Energy said that it was the eighth massive, combined attack on energy infrastructure facilities in the past three months, with the southern Zaporizhzhia region and Lviv in the west being the primary targets. Damage was reported to equipment at Ukrenergo facilities in these regions.
Ukrenergo confirmed that two employees were injured and hospitalized in Zaporizhzhia, which is home to Europe’s largest nuclear plant.
More than two years into the Russian invasion, persistent missile and drone strikes have severely impacted Ukraine’s electricity generation capacity, forcing Kyiv to implement blackouts and import energy from the European Union.
Due to the recent damage, Ukrenergo announced that power outages across the country would start earlier than usual on Saturday, running from 1100 GMT to 2100 GMT.
In Zaporizhzhia, regional military administration reported that shelling over the past day had killed one civilian and destroyed residential buildings and infrastructure. Although Russia controls part of the region and the nuclear plant, the Russian-appointed administration claimed that Ukrainian attacks had damaged a substation connected to the city’s nuclear power plant, though nuclear safety was not compromised.
In the western Lviv region, Governor Maksym Kozytskyi reported that a missile attack on a critical energy infrastructure facility had sparked a fire, which was subsequently extinguished. Ukrainian troops in the west managed to shoot down seven out of the ten cruise missiles fired by Moscow, according to the Lviv regional governor.
Furthermore, five civilians were killed by Russian shelling in the frontline areas of the eastern Donetsk region over the past day, according to the head of the region, Vadym Filashkin. Intense clashes were reported near the town of Pokrovsk, where Russia is attempting to advance, but Ukraine’s military assured that the situation was “under control.”