Russia launched a barrage of missiles at Ukrainian power facilities on Saturday, hitting locations in the centre and west of the country, damaging equipment and injuring at least one energy worker, officials said.
Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on the Telegram messaging app that the Russian strikes targeted the Dnipropetrovsk region in central Ukraine and the western regions of Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk.
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, said its four thermal power stations were hit.
“The enemy again massively shelled the Ukrainian energy facilities,” DTEK said in a statement. “The company’s equipment was seriously damaged. At this very moment, energy workers are trying to eliminate the consequences of the attack.”
Galushchenko said one energy worker had been injured. DTEK also said there were casualties but provided no other details.
The commander of the Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched combined overnight strikes using a total of 34 cruise and ballistic missiles of which Ukrainian air defence shot down 21.
Since March 22, Russian forces have ramped up their bombardments of the Ukrainian power sector, attacking thermal and hydropower stations and other energy infrastructure almost daily.
Ukraine has lost about 80% of its thermal generation and about 35% of its hydropower capacity, officials aid. Its energy system was already weakened by a Russian air campaign in the first winter of the war that Russia launched in February 2022.
Despite mild spring weather in recent weeks, Ukraine has faced an electricity deficit and the government had to introduce scheduled blackouts in several regions and turn to emergency electricity imports.
In the Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukrainian air defence shot down 13 Russian missiles, said Governor Serhiy Lysak.
“Unfortunately, we could not avoid the consequences. Energy facilities in Dnipropetrovsk and Kryvyi Rih regions were damaged, fires broke out.”
Lysak said the water supply was disrupted in the city of Kryvyi Rih.
In the western regions of Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk, firefighters were also extinguishing massive fires at several energy facilities, regional officials said.
“It is difficult for the energy system to maintain the production and consumption balance. We have to help,” said Maksym Kozytskyi, Lviv regional governor, urging residents to save electricity, especially during the peak evening hours.
Ukrainian drones hit two Russian oil refineries and a military airfield in a large-scale overnight attack, a Ukrainian defence source told AFP on Saturday.
The source said Ukraine hit "key technological facilities" at two refineries in the southern Krasnodar region. Russian officials had earlier reported a fire at a refinery in the town of Slavyansk-on-Kuban and state media said the facility had partially halted production.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a new appeal for air defences and fast weapons deliveries after the latest Russian strike on the Ukrainian energy sector on Saturday.
Zelensky said Ukraine needed sufficient quantities of air defence and other weapons to protect its cities and prevail on the frontline.
“Terror should always lose, and anyone who helps us stand against Russian terror is a true defender of life,” he said.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, Reuters)
