- Russia’s army, on November 28, launched a “massive attack” on Ukraine’s energy sector, leaving at least one million people across three western regions without power.
- Energy provider DTEK said Ukrenergo was introducing emergency power outages in the regions of Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipro and Donetsk.
Russia’s army, on November 28, launched a “massive attack” on Ukraine‘s energy sector, leaving at least one million people across three western regions without power, local officials said.
Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushchenko said, “Attacks on energy facilities are happening all over Ukraine,” after a countrywide air alert for incoming missiles.
There are explosions in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Rivne, Khmelnytskyi, Lutsk, and many other cities in central and western Ukraine.
The attacks cut power to 523,000 consumers in Lviv region, about 215,000 in Volyn region and over 280,000 in Rivne region, their governors reported on the Telegram messaging app.
The air force reported a string of Russian cruise missiles and attack drones heading for cities across the country, including the capital Kyiv, Kharkiv in the north-east and the Black Sea port city of Odesa.
“Once again, the energy sector is under massive enemy attack. Attacks on energy facilities are taking place across Ukraine,” Mr Galushchenko said.
He added that national power grid operator Ukrenergo had “urgently introduced emergency power cuts” as temperatures dropped to around zero degrees Celsius.
Energy provider DTEK said Ukrenergo was introducing emergency power outages in the regions of Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipro and Donetsk.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff said the wave of attacks showed Russia was “continuing their tactics of terror”.
“They stockpiled missiles for attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, for warfare against civilians during … winter,” Andriy Yermak said in a post on Telegram and pledged that Ukraine would respond.
A senior UN official, Rosemary DiCarlo, this month warned Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure may make this winter the “harshest since the start of the war”.
Russia earlier this week said it was preparing its own retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on its territory using US-supplied ATACMS missiles.
Ukraine has launched at least three attacks on Russian border regions with the missiles since the White House gave it permission to fire them on Russian territory.
Moscow responded to the first strike by firing a never-before-seen hypersonic ballistic missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
In an angry address to the nation, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the nuclear-capable missile could be used against Western countries if they let their arms be used by Ukraine to hit Russia.