Agencies
Kiev
Russia has once again massively attacked Ukraine’s energy system from the air, Kiev has said.
Power generation and distribution facilities in six regions were attacked overnight, Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Facebook on Wednesday. He named the regions of Poltava, Kirovohrad, Zaporizhzhya, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Vinnytsia.
Technicians are working to repair the damage, the exact extent is still being determined, he said. “The enemy wants to take away our ability to generate and transmit electricity in sufficient quantities,” the minister wrote. He called on the population to save electricity as a “contribution to victory.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky said there had been missile and drone attacks on critical energy facilities in seven regions.In posts on social media, Zelensky said more than 50 missiles and 20 drones had been fired by Russia on Tuesday, hitting facilities.
Ukraine’s national electricity company, Ukrenergo, said there were new blackouts in nine regions and warned of possible power cuts across the country on Wednesday evening as a result of the new damage and ongoing fighting.
Russia also hit the two power plants run by private firm DTEK - one in Ladyzhyn in central Ukraine and another in Burshtyn in the west. DTEK said at the time, without specifying which, that some of its facilities had been destroyed totally and others were running at around 50 percent capacity.
A night-time air alert sounded in large parts of Ukraine as Russian combat drones and missiles flew over the country. According to the Ukrainian air force, one of them was aimed at Kiev.
The capital’s military command later said that all approaching objects had been intercepted. In the suburb of Brovary, an unspecified civilian infrastructure object caught fire, according to Mayor Ihor Saposchko. One man and one woman were injured. According to the air force, a Kinzhal hypersonic missile was fired at western Ukraine.
Russia has been firing at targets in the Ukrainian hinterland almost every night in the war it started more than two years ago. Moscow is not only trying to hit military targets but also to disable Ukraine’s energy system. Purely civilian targets are also repeatedly hit.
