Russia is striking cities across Ukraine, targeting the country’s energy infrastructure
Russia attacked Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure on Thursday, shooting down nearly 200 missiles and drones and leaving more than a million homes without power, Ukrainian officials said.
The second major Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s power grid in less than two weeks raised fears that the Kremlin is aiming to cripple the country’s electricity generation capacity before winter.
“Attacks on power plants are happening all over Ukraine,” Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said in a Facebook post. He went on to say that emergency power cuts have been started across the country.
At least one million people in three western regions of the country were without power, officials said.
Almost half of Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure has been destroyed during the nearly three years of war with Russia, and blackouts are frequent. Kyiv’s Western allies want to help Ukraine secure energy production with air defense programs and reconstruction funds.
Russia has in recent years targeted Ukraine’s electricity generation, aiming to deny citizens essential heating and drinking water during the harsh winter months and disrupt Ukraine’s climate. The attack also seeks to disrupt Ukraine’s defense industry, which now produces missiles, drones and armored vehicles, among other military equipment.
Cluster weapons used, Zelenskyy said
In some regions, Kalibr cruise missiles with multiple weapons have destroyed civilian targets, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, calling it a “stealth escalation.” Cluster munitions release multiple small bombs over a wide area, making them dangerous to civilians during an attack.
Ukrainian officials warned recently that Russia was stockpiling cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, possibly for another pre-winter air campaign against Ukraine’s power grid. Ukrainian officials have previously accused Russia of “using weapons.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking in Kyiv on the 1,000th anniversary of the war, says Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to destroy Ukraine and ‘create chaos in the world.’
The war has been in Russia’s favor in recent months as its large army has used its advantage in manpower and equipment to push Ukrainian forces back to eastern areas, although its offensive has been slow and expensive.
Explosions were reported in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Rivne, Khmelnytskyi, Lutsk, and many other cities in central and western Ukraine.
The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andrii Yermak, said in a Telegram post that Russia has stockpiled missiles to hit Ukraine’s infrastructure and fight civilians in the cold season. “They are helped by their crazy allies, including those from North Korea,” he wrote.
Western and South Korean governments say North Korea has stepped up its support for Russia in recent months.
Power outages across the country
The head of the Lviv region in western Ukraine, Maksim Kozytskyi, said the attack left more than half a million families without electricity.
More than 280,000 households in the northwest of Rivne were without electricity due to this attack, according to Gov. Oleksandr Koval. The running water was also stained in the affected areas. Some schools in the city of Rivne have switched to online classes.
Petro Poroshenko, the former president of Ukraine, discusses what the second US president Trump would say about the war in Ukraine.
There were also strikes in the border region of Volyn, where 215,000 households were without electricity, said regional head Ivan Rudnytskyi. All critical infrastructure that lost power was switched to generators.
Energy infrastructure is also being targeted in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region, local officials said. Air defenses were activated there, and emergency power cuts were initiated.
Local officials have ordered the opening of “unbreakable zones” – shelters where people can charge their phones and other electronics and get drinks during blackouts.
In Kyiv, where air raid warnings lasted more than nine hours, missile debris fell in one place, local officials said. No injuries were reported.
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