Liberty Case

Russia launches sweeping attack on Ukraine’s power sector, a sign of possible escalation

BY HANNA ARHIROVA AND JIM HEINTZ

Kyiv, UKRAINE (AP) — Russia unleashed one of its most devastating attacks against Ukraine’s electric sector on Friday, an aerial assault it said was retaliation for recent strikes inside Russia and which could signal an escalation of the war just days after President Vladimir Putin cemented his grip on power in a preordained election.

Many Ukrainians were plunged into darkness across several cities, at least five people were killed, and damage to the country’s largest hydroelectric plant briefly cut off power to a nuclear plant that has been a safety risk throughout the war.

Russia fired off more than 60 exploding drones and 90 missiles in what Ukrainian officials described as the most brutal attack against its energy infrastructure since the full-scale war began in early 2022.

READ MORE : Russia attacks attacking the Ukrainian capital Kyiv with at least 30 missiles

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, sustained the most damage, officials said, and the attack came a day after Russia had fired 31 missiles into the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been urging Western allies for weeks to provide it with additional air-defense systems and ammunition, a period in which $60 billion in U.S. aid has been held up by divisions in Congress.

“With Russian missiles, there are no delays, like with aid packages to our state,” Zelenskyy said. “It is important to understand the cost of delays and postponed decisions.”

Russia’s defense ministry called Friday attacks “strikes of retribution.” Ukraine has increased shelling of Russia’s Belgorod region along its northeast border and has launched drone strikes targeting Russian oil refineries and other energy facilities.

Ukraine’s latest strike inside Russia on Friday killed one and injured at least three, according to local officials.

Putin has described Ukrainian attacks on Belgorod and other regions as an effort to frighten residents and derail the highly orchestrated election that ended Sunday. And he vowed to strike back.

The day after he declared victory, Putin said Russia would seek to create a buffer zone inside eastern Ukraine to help protect against long-range strikes and cross-border raids.

Russia has made progress on the battlefield in recent months against exhausted Ukrainian troops struggling with a shortage of manpower and ammunition along the front line that stretches over 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).

When Putin invaded in 2022, he called it a “special military operation,” and his officials have mostly eschewed the word “war.” But in a change of rhetoric Friday that may herald a new escalation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a Russian newspaper that “when the collective West became a participant in this on the side of Ukraine, for us it already became a war.”

In the winter of 2022-23, Russia targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, causing frequent blackouts across the country. Many in Ukraine and the West expected that Russia might repeat this strategy this winter, but Russia instead focused its strikes on Ukraine’s defense industries.

While launching the strikes, Russia has combined sophisticated ballistic and cruise missiles with waves of cheap Iranian-made Shahed drones in a bid to oversaturate and weaken Ukrainian air defenses.

Volodymyr Kudrytsky, head of the national utility Ukrenergo, described Friday’s barrage as the largest assault on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure since the full-scale war began.

“This attack was especially dangerous because the adversary combined different means of attack, kamikaze drones, ballistic and cruise missiles,” he said.

Strikes sparked a fire at the hydroelectric plan in Dnipro, which supplies electricity to the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, the largest such installation in Europe.

Power to the nuclear plant was lost for several hours before it was restored, International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi said early Friday. The Zaporizhzhia plant has been occupied by Russian troops since early days of the invasion, and fighting around it has raised the risk of a nuclear accident.

The dam at the hydroelectric station was not in danger of breaching, the country’s hydroelectric authority said. A dam breach could not only disrupt supplies to the nuclear plant but could potentially cause severe flooding similar to what occurred last year when a major dam at Kakhovka further down the Dnieper River collapsed.

Attacks on energy facilities in the Kharkiv region caused blackouts and disrupted critical air-raid siren systems. Other attacks were reported in areas of western Ukraine far from the front line.

The power outages left 1,060 miners trapped in the Dnipropetrovsk region and an evacuation was underway, according to private energy company DTEK.

Heintz reported from Tallinn, Estonia.

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Russia attacks attacking the Ukrainian capital Kyiv with at least 30 missiles

Kyiv, UKRAINE (EFE/AP) – Russia attacked the Ukrainian capital early Thursday with at least 30 cruise and ballistic missiles that have left some 10 people wounded, according to the city’s authorities.

This is the first major attack by Russia on Kyiv in more than a month and a half, and occurred around 5am local time, as verified by EFE.

READ MORE : Russian missiles kill at least 16 people in the latest strike on southern Ukraine’s Odesa

“The number of victims has increased to ten. Two of them were hospitalized. Others were provided with first aid at the scene. Six people were injured in the Shevchenkivskyi district of the capital. Four – in the Sviatoshynskyi district,” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram, according to state-owned Ukrinform agency.

The city’s military administration reported around 30 missiles brought down by the Ukrainian air defense systems.

The missiles or their fragments after being intercepted have caused damage to buildings in the Shevchenko, Sviatoshinsky and Podil districts of the Ukrainian capital.

All 31 missiles were intercepted by air defenses, but the debris from the downed missiles caused damage to apartment buildings and resulted in injuries to 13 individuals, including a child, according to officials.

Approximately 25,000 individuals sought refuge in the city’s subway stations, including around 3,000 children, as air raid sirens sounded for approximately three hours, officials reported.

Survivors, some visibly emotional and in tears, shared their harrowing experiences of narrowly escaping their homes after being startled awake by loud explosions around 5 a.m., as emergency responders tended to them on the streets.

Raisa Kozenko, a 71-year-old whose apartment lost its doors and windows in the blast, said her son jumped out of bed just in time. “He was covered in blood, in the rubble,” she said, trembling from shock. “And all I can say is … the apartment is completely destroyed.”

Russia has attacked civilian areas since the war started in February 2022 in an apparent effort to demoralize Ukrainians and break their will to fight. But the attack Thursday hardened Kozenko’s will to prevail.

“I believe in our victory. We will prevail no matter what,” she told The Associated Press.

Russia launched two ballistic missiles and 29 cruise missiles against the capital, and they arrived at roughly the same time from different directions, Ukrainian authorities said. The attack occurred hours after a visit to Kyiv by President Joe Biden’s top foreign policy adviser, Jake Sullivan.

Kyiv has better air defenses than most other Ukrainian cities and regions, including sophisticated systems provided by Western allies. The missile interception rate is frequently high, rendering Russian attacks on the capital significantly less successful than early on in the war. Other places, including the port city of Odesa, are more vulnerable and have sustained heavy damage from Russian missiles.

Ukrainian officials warn that their resources are stretched thin and that they need considerably more Western weapons if they are to keep fighting Russia’s invasion.

The heavy attack on Kyiv came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to “respond in kind” to recent Ukrainian aerial attacks on the Russian border region of Belgorod, which have embarrassed the Kremlin and which Russian officials say have killed civilians.

At a Wednesday event at the Kremlin, Putin said Russia “can respond in the same way regarding civilian infrastructure and all other objects of this kind that the enemy attacks. We have our own views on this matter and our own plans. We will follow what we have outlined.”

Five people were injured in an attack Thursday on the Belgorod region that damaged homes and a sports stadium, Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said. Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it stopped 10 rockets over the region.

In Kyiv, an 11-year-old girl and a 38-year-old man who were injured in Thursday’s attack were hospitalized, the city administration said. Eight other people suffered light injuries, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko.

Ukraine’s Emergency Service said about 80 people were evacuated from their homes.

Falling wreckage from the intercepted missiles set fire to at least one apartment building, burned parked cars and left craters in streets and a small park. Some streets were littered with debris, including glass from shattered windows.

Mariia Margulis, 31, said a decision to stay in the hallway throughout the attack saved her family.

“The blast wave blew out all the windows on the side where everything happened,” she said. “My mom was supposed to sleep in that room, but I asked her to move to the corridor in time, which saved us.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged the country’s Western partners to send more air defense systems so they can be distributed to other parts of the country where missile strikes have become more common.

“Every day, every night such … terror happens,” he said on Telegram after Thursday’s attack. “World unity is capable to stop it by helping us with more air defense systems.”

Zelenskyy said Russia doesn’t have missiles that can evade U.S.-made Patriots and other advanced air defense weapons.

European Union leaders were considering new ways to help boost arms and ammunition production for Ukraine at a summit in Brussels on Thursday.

Russia has largely turned its attention to other Ukrainian cities, targeting them with drones and ballistic missiles.

On Wednesday, Russian ballistic missiles killed five people and injured nine in the eastern Kharkiv region.

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