Russia targets Ukraine’s power grid in ‘massive’ missile strike

KYIV - Russia unleashed its largest wave of air strikes on Ukraine in almost three months on Nov 17, firing 120 missiles and 90 drones in a sweeping attack that killed at least seven people and caused “severe damage” to the power system.

Ukrainians have been bracing themselves for a major attack on the hobbled power system for weeks, fearing crippling damage to the grid that would cause long blackouts and build psychological pressure at a critical moment in the

war Russia launched in February 2022

.

“Another massive attack on the power system is under way. The enemy is attacking electricity generation and transmission facilities throughout Ukraine,” Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko wrote on Facebook.

Air defences could be heard engaging drones over the capital in the night and a series of powerful blasts rang out across the city centre as the missile attack was under way in the morning.

Kyiv’s air force said it destroyed 104 out of 120 missiles fired and 42 out of 90 drones launched by Russia.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said it launched a massive strike on energy facilities that supply Ukraine’s military-industrial complex.

“Severe damage to Ukraine’s energy system, including to DTEK power stations. These attacks again highlight Ukraine’s need for additional air defence systems from our allies,” said Mr Maxim Timchenko, chief executive of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy provider.

After repeated Russian attacks on the power grid, officials reveal little about the state of the energy infrastructure and seldom release detailed information on the outcome of strikes.

Officials confirmed damage to “critical infrastructure” or reported power cuts in regions spanning from Volyn, Rivne and Lviv in the west to the south-eastern Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.

DTEK imposed emergency power cuts in the southern Odesa region on the orders of energy officials.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the “massive combined attack targeted all regions of Ukraine”.

In Mykolaiv in the south, two people were killed in the overnight drone attack, the regional governor said. Blasts shook the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia and the Black Sea port of Odesa, Reuters witnesses said. More blasts were reported in the regions of Kryvyi Rih in the south and Rivne in the west.

‘True response’

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said “Russia launched one of the largest air attacks: drones and missiles against peaceful cities, sleeping civilians, critical infrastructure”.

Nato member Poland, which borders Ukraine to the west, said it scrambled its air force as a security precaution due to the Russian attack, which it said used cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and drones.

Poland “activated all available forces and resources at his disposal, the on-duty fighter pairs were scrambled, and the ground-based air defence and radar reconnaissance systems reached the highest state of readiness”, the operational command of its armed forces posted on X.

The Russian onslaught piles more pressure on Ukraine as Moscow’s troops notch up their fastest battlefield gains in the east since 2022 in their effort to seize the entire industrial Donbas region despite taking heavy losses, according to Kyiv and the West.

Ukrainian troops are, meanwhile, trying to hold land that they seized in Russia’s Kursk region in August, something Kyiv has said could serve as

a bargaining chip further down the line

.

Mr Sybiha said the strike appeared to be Moscow’s “true response” to leaders interacting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, an apparent swipe at German Chancellor Olaf Scholz,

who called the Russian leader

on Nov 15 for the first time since late 2022.

Though Mr Scholz urged Mr Putin to pull his troops out of Ukraine where they occupy a fifth of the country, Kyiv bridled at the fact of the call, which it said reduced the isolation of the Kremlin leader. REUTERS