Russia carries out largest air strike of Ukraine war on energy facilities – National

Russia on Friday staged its largest air strike on Ukrainian energy infrastructure of the war, hitting a vast dam, killing at least five people and leaving more than a million others without electricity, Kyiv said.

Ukraine, which has long urged allies to supply more air defenses, said its energy system had received emergency power supplies from neighboring Poland, Romania and Slovakia, as seven of its regions faced blackouts.

The attack by Russia, which vowed last week to punish Kyiv for conducting attacks and strikes during its presidential election, brought back memories of the first winter of the invasion when Moscow regularly bombed the power grid.

“Russia is at war against people’s ordinary lives. My condolences to the families and loved ones of those killed in this terror,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram messenger.


Click to play video: 'Canada provides additional $40M military aid package to Ukraine'


Canada provides additional $40M military aid package to Ukraine


Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians, though the war that began with its full-scale invasion in February 2022 has resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, the uprooting of millions and the destruction of Ukrainian towns and cities.

Story continues below advertisement

Moscow says attacks on Ukraine’s power infrastructure are legitimate strikes aimed at weakening the enemy’s military.


The email you need for the day’s
top news stories from Canada and around the world.


The email you need for the day’s
top news stories from Canada and around the world.

Ukraine’s largest dam, the DniproHES in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, suffered strikes to its hydraulic structures and to the dam itself, state hydropower company Ukrhidroenergo said, adding there was no risk of a breach.

The company’s director Ihor Syrota said both its power blocks and the dam had been damaged. One of the blocks sustained two direct strikes, he said.

“There is currently a fire at the station. Emergency services and energy workers are working on the spot, dealing with the consequences of numerous airstrikes,” the company said.

At least five people were killed, two in the western Khmelnytskyi region and three in Zaporizhzhia including at least one at the dam, according to the local administration and general prosecutor’s office.

Story continues below advertisement

Russia fired 88 missiles and 63 Shahed drones, of which only 37 and 55 were shot down respectively, the Ukrainian air force said of the attacks concentrated in the regions of Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia.

That represented a worse ratio than usual that could reflect Moscow’s widespread use of ballistic missiles that are harder to down and also the proximity of the targeted regions to Russian-controlled areas.


Click to play video: 'Russia election: Putin wins 5th term in office with 87% of vote'


Russia election: Putin wins 5th term in office with 87% of vote


Some 1.2 million people in at least four regions had been left without power due to the attacks, according to figures posted by presidential aide Oleksiy Kuleba on Telegram. Around 700,000 of those were in the eastern region of Kharkiv alone.

“The goal is not just to damage, but to try again, like last year, to cause a large-scale failure of the country’s energy system,” Energy Minister German Galushchenko wrote on Facebook.

Story continues below advertisement

“Russia launched the largest combined attack on the Ukrainian energy system since the beginning of the full-scale invasion,” grid operator UkrEnergo cited their head, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, as saying. It reported blackouts in seven regions.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said there was work under way to repair power supply in nine regions.

“The world sees the targets of Russian terrorists as clearly as possible: power plants and energy supply lines, a hydroelectric dam, ordinary residential buildings, even a trolleybus,” he said.

Ukraine’s largest private energy company DTEK said some of its thermal power plants had been hit.

FOLLOW US ON GOOGLE NEWS

Read original article here

Denial of responsibility! Secular Times is an automatic aggregator of the all world’s media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials, please contact us by email – seculartimes.com. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.

Leave a Comment