Russia carried out its second big attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure this month on Thursday, cutting power to at least one million people across three western regions of the country, officials said.
“Energy infrastructure is once again targeted by the enemy’s massive strike,” Ukrainian energy minister German Galushchenko wrote on Facebook.
Ukraine’s national grid operator Ukrenergo introduced emergency power cuts amid the attack, Mr Galushchenko said.
Ukraine’s top private power company DTEK said the power cuts impacted the capital as well as Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions.
Russia previously staged 10 massive attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure, which hobbled the system and spurred fears of long power cuts ahead of the winter months.
During the Thursday attack on the western Rivne region, governor Oleksandr Koval said 280,000 consumers experienced power cuts. He also reported interruptions in water supply without elaborating on damage.
The mayor of the western town of Lutsk reported power cuts after several strikes, adding that the services were working to connect water and heating infrastructure to alternative power sources.
Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said a missile strike on the city damaged a business facility and windows in an apartment building.
The missile attack on the northeastern Sumy region targeted infrastructure, regional authorities said.
Debris in Kyiv fell on the territory of a business and dealt minor damage to several buildings and a truck, the Kyiv city military administration said.
The Russian attack “dealt a hard blow, used a lot of cluster munitions”, a source in Ukraine’s energy industry told Reuters.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday its forces had taken control of the settlement of Nova Illinka, close to the embattled Donetsk region town of Kurakhove in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine's military made no mention of Nova Illinka in its daily dispatches. The town lies on the opposite bank of a reservoir from Kurakhove, one of the focal points of a steady advance through Donetsk region by Russian forces.
But Deep State, a popular Ukrainian blog tracking the movements of the armed forces, said more than a week ago that Nova Illinka had fallen into Russian hands.
Reuters could not independently verify battlefield reports from either side.
Analysts and war bloggers say Russian forces are advancing in eastern Ukraine at the fastest rate since the early days of the February 2022 invasion, capturing village after village.
Kurakhove and Pokrovsk, farther north in Donetsk region, are the next apparent targets of the Russian advance.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaking in his nightly video address, mentioned areas around both towns as the theatre of some of the fiercest fighting in the conflict, which has now extended over more than 33 months.
Mr Zelenskiy also cited the Kupiansk sector further north in Kharkiv region, where Russian troops have been active. According to Ukrainian reports, Russian troops have made two forays recently into Kupiansk only to be expelled.
The town was occupied by Russian forces in the early weeks of the invasion and was recaptured months later in a lightning Ukrainian counter-offensive.
Ukraine’s General Staff, in a late night report on Wednesday, said Ukrainian forces had repelled 30 of 36 attacks near Kurakhove, with six armed clashes still going on. It said Ukrainian troops had repelled 26 of 35 attacks near Pokrovsk. – Agencies
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2024