KYIV: Russia has fired a combined 100 missiles and drones at Ukraine overnight, in a barrage that targeted energy sites in the country, Ukrainian authorities said on Saturday. According to AFP, Russia has launched hundreds of aerial strikes at Ukraine’s power facilities across the two-year war, causing major damage and energy shortages as Ukraine’s stretched air defenses struggle to repel the waves of attacks.
In a statement, Ukraine’s air force said, “The enemy launched around 53 missiles of various types and about 47 drones,” saying that it shot down about 35 of the missiles.
The DTEK operator said that two thermal power plants were damaged in the Russian attack, without specifying their locations.
“It was another very difficult night for the energy sector in Ukraine. The enemy targeted two of our energy plants. The apparatus was seriously damaged,” the firm said in a statement via social media. It was the sixth major assault on DTEK thermal power plants since mid-March, it said.
Ukraine’s Minister for Energy German Galushchenko said Moscow had targeted sites in five regions —Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovograd, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Ivano-Frankivsk — stretching from near the eastern frontlines to Ukraine’s west, which borders the European Union.
The Ministry of Energy also warned that power restrictions were likely on Saturday evening as a result of the strikes.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia was trying to “exploit” a lack of “determination” among Ukraine’s key Western supporters and repeated his call for more air defense systems. In a statement, he said that Moscow’s main goal is to normalize terror, to completely exploit the lack of sufficient air defense and determination of Kyiv’s partners.”
