‘Massive enemy attack’: Russia strikes Ukraine’s energy infrastructure

Ukraine’s power infrastructure has come “under massive enemy attack”, according to the country’s energy minister, leaving more than one million people without electricity.

In a Facebook post on Thursday, Energy Minister German Galushchenko said that “attacks on energy facilities are taking place across Ukraine”, adding that the national power grid’s operator had “urgently introduced emergency power cuts”.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence has not yet made any announcements.

Explosions were heard in the Ukrainian cities of Odesa, Kropyvnytskyi, Kharkiv, Rivne and Lutsk on Thursday morning, Ukrainian news outlets Dzerkalo Tyzhnia and Suspilne said.

“Air defence forces work in the capital. Stay in shelters!” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app.

The regional military administration reported on its Telegram channel that the infrastructure of the Shostka community in Ukraine’s Sumy region also came under a Russian missile strike, with its impact being assessed.

Three missile strikes were reported on the Kyiv district of Kharkiv by the head of the regional military administration, Oleg Sinegubov.

“As of this moment, there are no casualties,” he wrote on his Telegram channel at 6:35am (04:35 GMT).

Reporting from Ukraine’s Kharkiv, Al Jazeera’s Assed Baig said the attack seems to be Russia’s “largest in recent months”.

“The Ukrainian air defences have been in action to intercept some of those missiles, but there are reports of residential buildings being hit in Kharkiv as well as debris falling in areas of the capital, Kyiv,” he said.

There are power outages in Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipro and Donetsk regions, according to national power grid operator Ukrenergo, as temperatures across the country dropped to about 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit).

Later, the CEO of the Yasno energy supplier Sergey Kovalenko said there were emergency blackouts all over the country due to the enemy’s attack on our energy sector. “There is no end in sight,” he added.

More than a million subscribers in Ukraine’s west, hundreds of kilometres from the front lines.

“As of now, 523,000 subscribers in Lviv region are without electricity,” regional head Maksym Kozytskyi said on social media.

Regional officials said at least another 280,000 were cut off in the western Rivne region and another 215,000 in the northwestern Volyn region, which also borders Poland.

“Power engineers are working to ensure backup power supply schemes where possible. They have already started restoration work where the security situation allows,” the energy ministry said.

It said it was the 11th massive Russian attack on Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure this year.

Rosemary DiCarlo, a senior UN official, warned this month that Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure may make this winter the “harshest since the start of the war”.

‘Terror tactics’

Reacting to the attacks, Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said “the Russians continue their terror tactics”.

“They stockpiled missiles to strike Ukrainian infrastructure, to wage war on civilians during the cold weather, during the winter. They were helped by their crazy allies, in particular from the DPRK,” he wrote on his Telegram channel, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“They are even fighting with children. Ukraine has something to respond with,” he added.

The Ukrainian Navy said on Thursday that the Russian Navy has deployed four Kalibr carrier ships to combat duty in the Black Sea with a total salvo of up to 22 missiles.

Russia has repeatedly attacked Ukraine’s energy generation capacity since its full-scale invasion in February 2022, prompting repeated emergency power shutdowns and nationwide rolling blackouts.