Russia launches more than 50 missiles in air attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure

A major Russian aerial attack targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure on Wednesday has damaged several facilities, Ukraine’s military and energy officials said.

The targeted facilities include power generation and transmission buildings in the Poltava, Kirovohrad, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Vinnytsia regions, Ukrainian energy minister German Galushchenko said on his Telegram channel. He called it “another massive attack on our energy industry”.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said “Nazi Putin” fired more than 50 missiles and more than 20 Shahed drones on Ukraine on the same day Europe marked Remembrance and Victory over Nazism in the second World War.

“Over 50 missiles and more than 20 Shahed drones targeted infrastructure in Lviv, Vinnytsia, Kyiv, Poltava, Kirovohrad, Zaporizhzhia, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions. All necessary services are already working to mitigate the consequences of Russian terror,” he said on X.

“The entire world must understand who is who. The world must not give a chance to new Nazism,” the Ukrainian war-time leader said.

All missiles targeting Kyiv were destroyed, Serhiy Popko, head of the city’s military administration. He added there was no major damage or injuries as a result of the attack.

Ukrenergo, the war-hit country’s national grid operator, confirmed damage from Russian strikes to one of its facilities in central Ukraine but did not share more details in a bid to not reveal the impact of military attacks.

Officials in the central Poltava region said an energy infrastructure facility was hit by a drone attack, causing a fire.

There are no immediate reports of casualties.

In other targeted regions – Vinnytsia and Zaporizhzhia – governors said separately that critical civilian infrastructure facilities were damaged, without providing further detail.

Only Zaporizhzhia region is near the frontline region but all other targeted cities are far from the battlefield in Ukraine’s east and southeast.

Regional officials said 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.

Russia, which began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has launched a series of attacks on Ukrainian power facilities in recent months.