War in Ukraine: Russia violently strikes Ukrainian energy network with more than 70 missiles on Christmas Day

The Kremlin launched more than seventy missiles and a hundred explosive drones into Ukrainian territory this Wednesday, December 25, 2024. The country's energy network was heavily affected by these strikes.

Russia launched more than 70 missiles and more than 100 explosive drones on Ukraine on Wednesday, targeting its energy system, leaving hundreds of thousands of homes without electricity or heat on Christmas Day.

Russian President Vladimir “Putin deliberately chose Christmas for his attack. What could be more inhumane?” his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram. “More than 50 missiles” and some drones were shot down.

This “terror” is “Putin's response to those who spoke of an illusory Christmas ceasefire”between kyiv and Moscow, said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga. The strikes targeted six Ukrainian regions, killing at least one person and injuring six others and causing widespread heating outages in temperatures close to zero, according to Ukrainian authorities.

One employee killed and many injured

In the city of Dnipro, an employee of a thermal power plant was killed, said Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba. In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second city, half a million homes were left without electricity, heating and tap water, said the governor of the region Oleg Synegoubov.

At least six people were injured in Kharkiv in the latest attacks, according to Mr Synegoubov. The Ukrainian Air Force reported detecting 78 Russian missiles and 106 drones, claiming to have shot down 59 and 54 of them respectively.

On the Russian side, a Ukrainian strike killed four people and injured several others on Wednesday in Lgov, a town in the Kursk border region where Ukraine has been waging an offensive since August, acting governor Alexander Khinchtein said.

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Thermal power plants targeted

DTEK Group, Ukraine's largest private energy supplier, said its thermal power plants were targeted in Wednesday's attack, reporting “serious damage” to their equipment.“This is already the thirteenth massive attack on the Ukrainian energy system this year,”, according to a statement.

The national electricity company, Ukrenergo, has announced supply restrictions. “The enemy is once again massively attacking the energy sector,”, which is forcing the authorities to take “measures” to reduce consumption, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko explained on Telegram. The outages even briefly affected the Ivano-Frankivsk region, in the west of the country and hundreds of kilometers from the front line, according to the regional administration.

In addition, one of the Russian missiles crossed Moldovan and Romanian airspace, Mr. Sybiga said on the social network X. Romania, a NATO member, immediately assured that it had not detected a violation of its airspace by a Russian missile.

A symbolic date

Wednesday's attacks come on the day that Ukraine, for the second time in its modern history, celebrates Christmas Day on December 25, as in the Western world, and no longer on January 7, which corresponds to December 25 of the old Julian calendar still followed by the Russian Orthodox Church for religious holidays.

This change had been made official during the summer of 2023, in particular to distance itself from Russia. Between 2017 and 2022, Ukraine, a predominantly Orthodox country, had already celebrated this holiday on December 25 and January 7.

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Ukraine and Russia have stepped up their strikes in recent months and want to do everything they can to strengthen their positions before Donald Trump returns to the White House in January, with the US president-elect having said he wanted to stop “the carnage” as soon as he takes office. The Russian army, which has been advancing rapidly in eastern Ukraine in recent months, is trying to accelerate its advance further.