Ukraine said Russian forces attacked the country’s infrastructure on Wednesday, forcing officials to impose blackouts to relieve pressure on the country’s grid.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said air defenses had shot down at least 30 of more than 40 missiles launched by Russia in an attack on gas and energy facilities.
“Another big attack by Russia. It’s the middle of winter, and the target of the Russian people remains the same: our energy infrastructure,” he said in a statement on social media from the capital, where temperatures soared above freezing.
Air, surface and sea missiles – including at least one ballistic missile – were launched at the fort, along with dozens of attack drones, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. It said power centers in Kharkiv, Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions were damaged, but stressed that not all missiles that evaded air defenses hit their targets.
Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed that it had used “precision weapons and drones” against key gas and energy infrastructure, saying in a statement that “all targeted facilities were hit.”
Russian forces have repeatedly targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in operations to destabilize the country over the winter. Attacks on power stations and substations have left the country’s power grid at risk of collapse, experts say.
On Wednesday, an alarm sounded at around 5:45 a.m. in Kyiv, the capital, as most of the country was alerted to the missile blast. Polish soldiers shot down military planes in defense.
As Ukrainians huddled in shelters at three o’clock and the air force warned of cruise missiles, the energy minister, Herman Galushchenko, announced emergency measures.
“Due to the massive attack, the transmission system operator is implementing preventive measures,” Mr. Galushchenko wrote in a statement on Facebook.
Emergency power shutdowns were briefly implemented in six regions across the country, including Kharkiv in the northeast and Zaporizhzhia in the south, according to Ukrenergo, the national electricity operator.
Two important infrastructure facilities were hit in the Lviv region of western Ukraine, according to the head of the regional military administration, Maksim Kozytskyi. After that, he said that two houses and two outhouses were destroyed. Facilities in the Ivano-Frankivsk region were also attacked, authorities there said.
The attack came a day after Moscow threatened to retaliate over what it said was Ukraine’s recent use of Western-made long-range missiles to attack inside Russia.
Ukraine’s power grid has been so battered by strikes that officials have been forced to seek alternatives — such as hiring floating power plants and moving abandoned ones out of the region — to relieve pressure on the grid and prevent a crisis.
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