(Kyiv) Ukraine on Saturday accused Russia of having launched a new “massive” attack overnight against its energy infrastructure and of having carried out strikes that left at least seven dead in the south and east of the country. .
“Facilities of Ukrenergo [Ukrainian operator] in the Zaporizhia (South) and Lviv (West) regions were damaged,” the Ukrainian Energy Ministry said.
Ukrenergo said two of its employees were injured and hospitalized in Zaporizhia.
According to the ministry, this is the eighth “massive” attack on Ukrainian power plants in the past three months, leading to frequent power outages as the power grid struggles to withstand targeted strikes by the Russians.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Saturday it carried out a “grouped strike” against Ukrainian energy facilities, “in response” to Kyiv’s attacks on its own territory.
Ukrainian authorities indicated Thursday that energy infrastructure, including a power station, had been damaged by a major nighttime Russian attack which left seven of their employees injured.
Russia, by increasing its attacks, has destroyed half of Ukraine’s energy capacity, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The latter called on Thursday to install solar panels and energy storage units “in every school and in every hospital, as soon as possible.”
The general director of the operator DTEK, Maxime Timchenko, had warned that Ukraine risked being “faced with a serious crisis this winter” if its Western partners did not mobilize.
Kyiv is urging them to help rebuild its electricity network, a project that requires significant investment, and to provide it with more air defense equipment to counter Russian bombings.
In this context, Washington has “made the difficult but necessary decision” to now prioritize Ukraine over other allies in the supply of missiles used for anti-aircraft defense.
Ukrenergo announced that nationwide power outages would begin earlier than usual on Saturday due to damage caused by the attacks.
Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of deadly bombings on both sides of the border.
On Russian soil, a civilian was killed by a Ukrainian strike on a farm in the border region of Belgorod, said its governor Vyacheslav Gladkov
In the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia, Russian shelling killed one civilian and destroyed residential buildings and infrastructure, according to the regional military administration.
Russian occupation authorities in the same region claimed that the Ukrainian attacks had damaged a substation of the city’s nuclear power plant, controlled by Russian troops. They also assured that nuclear security was not affected.
In western Ukraine, Russia “launched a missile attack on critical energy infrastructure,” starting a fire that was later extinguished, Lviv region governor Maxim Kozytsky said.
A police officer manning a checkpoint was killed by a drone in the southern Kherson region, national police said.
In the east of the country, five civilians were killed by Russian shelling in the past 24 hours in frontline areas in the Donetsk region, its governor, Vadym Filashkin, said.
In the occupied part of this mining region, of which Russia claims annexation, three people were killed and four others injured on Saturday in several Ukrainian strikes in Donetsk and Gorlivka, according to the head of the Russian occupation of the region, Denis Pushilin .
In recent months, the Russian army has continued to advance there in the face of a Ukrainian army lacking men and ammunition.
Moscow is still trying to gain ground in the area near the town of Pokrovsk, where intense clashes took place on Saturday, the Ukrainian military said, adding that the situation was “under control”.