Russia launches new 'massive attack' on Ukraine's power infrastructure

Ukraine accused Russia on Saturday of launching a new "massive" attack on its energy infrastructure overnight and of carrying out strikes that left at least seven dead in the south and east of the country.

“The facilities of Ukrenergo (Ukrainian operator) in the Zaporizhzhia (south) and Lviv (west) regions were damaged,” the Ukrainian Energy Ministry said.

Ukrenergo said two of its employees were injured and hospitalized in Zaporizhzhia.

According to the ministry, this is the eighth “massive” attack on Ukrainian power plants in the past three months, leading to frequent power outages as the power grid struggles to withstand targeted Russian strikes.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday it had carried out a “grouped strike” against Ukrainian energy installations, “in response” to Kiev's attacks on its own territory.

Ukrainian authorities indicated Thursday that energy infrastructure, including a power station, had been damaged by a major nighttime Russian attack which left seven of their employees injured.

Russia, by increasing its attacks, has destroyed half of Ukraine's energy capacity, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

– “Serious crisis” –

The latter called on Thursday to install solar panels and energy storage units “in every school and in every hospital, as soon as possible”.

The general director of the operator DTEK, Maxime Timchenko, had warned that Ukraine risked being “faced with a serious crisis this winter”, if its partners Westerners were not mobilizing.

kyiv urges the latter to help it rebuild its electricity network, a project which requires significant investments, and to provide it with more 'anti-aircraft defense equipment to counter Russian bombings.

In this context, Washington “made the difficult but necessary decision” to now give priority to Ukraine over other allies in the supply of missiles used for anti-aircraft defense.

Ukrenergo announced that nationwide power cuts would begin earlier than usual on Saturday, between 11:00 GMT and 21:00 GMT, due to the damage caused by the attacks.

Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of deadly bombings on both sides of the border.

On Russian soil, a civilian was killed by a Ukrainian strike on a farm in the border region of Belgorod, said its governor Vyacheslav Gladkov

In the Ukrainian region of Zaporizhia (south), Russian shelling killed one civilian and destroyed residential buildings and infrastructure, according to the regional military administration.

Russian occupation authorities in the same region claimed that the Ukrainian attacks had damaged a substation of the city's nuclear power plant, controlled by Russian troops. They also assured that nuclear security was not affected.

In western Ukraine, Russia “launched a missile attack on infrastructure critical energy”, sparking a fire which was then extinguished, said the governor of the Lviv region, Maxim Kozytsky.

– Intense fighting in Pokrovsk –

A police officer manning a checkpoint was killed by a drone in the southern region of Kherson, national police said.

In the east of the country, five civilians were killed by Russian bombing over the past 24 hours in frontline areas in the Donetsk region, declared its governor, Vadym Filachkine.

In the occupied part of this mining region, of which Russia claims annexation, three people were killed and four others injured on Saturday in several Ukrainian strikes in Donetsk and Gorlivka, according to the head of the Russian occupation of the region, Denis Pushilin.

The Russian army has continued in recent months to advance there in the face of a Ukrainian army lacking men and ammunition.

Moscow is still trying to gain ground in the area near the town of Pokrovsk, where Intense clashes took place on Saturday, the Ukrainian army said, adding that the situation was “under control”.

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