Russian air strike piles pressure on Ukraine power grid

Russia's latest air strikes on Ukraine are piling more pressure on its beleaguered energy system. (AP PHOTO)

Russian missiles and drones have struck almost a dozen Ukrainian critical infrastructure facilities in a major air strike, causing serious damage at three Soviet-era thermal power plants, Kyiv officials said.

The air force said it shot down 39 of 55 missiles and 20 out of 21 drones used in Wednesday's attack, which piles more pressure on Ukraine's beleaguered energy system more than two years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

"Another massive attack on our energy industry," Energy Minister German Galushchenko wrote on the Telegram app.

Two people were injured in the Kyiv region and one was hurt in the Kirovohrad region, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.

Some 350 rescuers were racing to minimise the damage caused to multiple energy facilities, 30 homes, public transport vehicles, cars and a fire station, he said.

Power generation and transmission facilities in the Poltava, Kirovohrad, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Vinnytsia regions were targeted, Galushchenko said.

The strike was the latest in a wave of attacks on critical energy infrastructure that began in March.

The attacks have already forced authorities to impose rolling blackouts in several regions, but their full impact will likely be felt later in the year when energy consumption peaks at the height of summer and in winter.

Apart from southeastern Zaporizhzhia, all those regions are located far from the front lines in the east where heavy fighting is taking place and Russia has been gaining ground.

Galushchenko did not name the hit facilities, part of a policy of wartime secrecy that Kyiv says is needed to prevent Russia from using the information for further air strikes.

Lviv governor Maksym Kozytskyi said Russia also attacked a natural gas storage facility in his region in the west of the country, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow.

Missile strike in Zaporizhzhia
Russian has targeted Zaporizhzhia in a wave of attacks on Ukraine's critical energy infrastructure.

Russia denies targeting civilians but it sees the Ukrainian energy system as a legitimate military target.

The air strikes came on the day Ukraine commemorates victory over Nazism in World War II, something that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy emphasised in an address on Telegram along with the February 2022 invasion.

"The world slept through the revival of Nazism - at 5am on February 24, 2022," he said.

"And today, everyone who remembers the Second World War and lived to this day feels deja vu."

Grid operator Ukrenergo said on Telegram that equipment at one of its facilities in central Ukraine was damaged, without providing further detail.

In the central Poltava region, an energy infrastructure facility was hit by a drone, sparking a fire, Poltava Regional Governor Filip Pronin wrote on Telegram.

According to preliminary information, there were no casualties.

Governors of the Vinnytsia and Zaporizhzhia regions said separately that critical civilian infrastructure facilities were damaged, without providing further detail.

All missiles targeting Kyiv were destroyed, Serhiy Popko, head of the city's military administration, said on Telegram.

He said there was no major damage or injuries as a result of the attack.

Air defence systems were also engaged in repelling the Russian attack over the Lviv region, which borders NATO-member Poland, where several blasts took place, regional officials said.

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