Massive Russian attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure
Two people were killed and 18 wounded in a Russian guided bomb attack on the Ukrainian city of Kharkov on Saturday, local officials said.
Kharkov Mayor Ihor Terikhov said at least four explosions were heard in a residential area this afternoon.
Kharkov is about 30 kilometers from the border with Russia.
Russian attacks have frequently targeted the city of about 1.3 million people during the nearly 28-month war.
Russia launched a new massive attack on energy infrastructure in western and southern Ukraine on Friday night, Ukraine’s energy ministry said.
The Ukrainian military announced that Russia launched 16 cruise missiles from land, sea and air as well as 13 attack drones, targeting energy infrastructure in several regions.
It said air defenses shot it down all but four.
For its part, the Russian Defense Ministry said that its forces carried out a joint strike with long-range and high-precision weapons from the air and sea, as well as drones on Ukrainian energy facilities engaged in the production of weapons.
It said it had also targeted warehouses containing ammunition and air-launched weapons provided by Western countries to the Ukrainian army.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Energy reported damage to the facilities of Yukrinergo (National Electricity Company) in the Zaporizhia regions and Lviv, noting that two employees were hospitalized after being injured in Zaporizhia.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Energy said the massive attack was the eighth on Ukrainian power facilities in three months, leading to frequent power outages.
More than two years after the Russian invasion, missile and drone attacks paralyzed Ukraine’s electricity generation capacity and forced Kiev to cut off power and obtain supplies from the European Union.
Yucrinergo said the nationwide power outages would begin earlier than usual on Saturday, and would run from 11:00 GMT to 21:00 GMT due to damage from the attacks.
In Zaporizhia, Friday’s shelling killed one civilian and destroyed residential buildings and infrastructure, according to the regional military administration.
Russia controls part of the region and the nuclear plant.
The Russian-appointed administration said the Ukrainian attacks damaged a substation linked to the city’s nuclear power plant but did not affect nuclear security.
Maxim Kozetsky, governor of the western Lviv region, said Russia launched a missile attack on a vital energy infrastructure facility, triggering a fire that was later extinguished.
The governor of Lviv province announced that Ukrainian forces stationed in the west shot down seven of the ten cruise missiles launched by Moscow.
The Russian attacks destroyed half of Ukraine’s energy capacity, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, who on Thursday called for solar panels and energy storage units to be installed in every school, in every hospital, as soon as possible.
“We’re doing our best to ensure that Russian attempts to blackmail us in terms of heating and electricity fail”.
On Thursday, a Ukrainian power plant was damaged by a large-scale Russian attack on Wednesday night, according to private company DTEK.
DTEK general director Maxim Timchenko warned that Ukraine could face a serious crisis this winter if its Western partners don’t act.
Kiev has urged its allies to help it rebuild the power grid, a project that requires significant investment, and to provide it with more air defense equipment to counter Russian bombings.
Ukraine’s military said Saturday that frontline clashes are continuing in the area near the town of Pokrovsk northwest of the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk, as Moscow tries to break through Ukrainian defenses.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces had improved their positions in the eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions and the northeastern Kharkov region.
Vadim Villashkin, the head of the region, confirmed that five civilians had been killed in Russian shelling on frontline areas in the Donetsk region.
In the Kherson region in the south, a policeman was killed at a drone checkpoint, the Ukrainian National Police Force said.
In Kharkov in northeastern Ukraine, Russian strikes killed two people and wounded 15 others.
Regional Governor Oleg Sinegobov wrote on Telegram: “According to preliminary information of paramedics, two people were killed… The number of wounded as a result of the occupation airstrikes has risen to 15”.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it had struck 340 Ukrainian targets in the past 24 hours.
Denis Pushlin, head of Russian authorities in the Donetsk region, said the separatist-held city of Donetsk and the nearby town of Gorlevka had come under heavy attack from Ukraine.
He said three men working for a construction company were killed by a rocket that fired cluster munitions.
Three others were reported injured in a drone attack on a civilian minibus, and a fourth was hit by an anti-personnel mine.
In Russia’s southern Belgorod region, a man was killed in shelling on an agricultural project near the border with Ukraine’s Kharkov region, Belgorod district governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
