Moscow launched a large-scale attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure on Friday, with a massive barrage of 99 drones and missiles hitting areas across the country, Ukraine’s armed forces said.
Air raid warnings sounded across the country, with 10 Ukrainian regions under fire, the country’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.
Russia has escalated its attacks on Ukraine in recent days, launching several missile barriers in the capital, Kiev, and striking energy infrastructure across the country in apparent retaliation for Ukraine’s recent airstrikes against the Russians border region of Belgorod. Such sporadic attacks, however, were common throughout the war.
Large-scale blackouts have already affected the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, where 700,000 people lost power after a drone and missile attack hit the city’s thermal power plant on March 22.
In the winter of 2022-23, Russia targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, causing frequent power outages. Many in Ukraine and in the West expected that Russia might repeat this strategy this winter, but Russia instead initially focused its strikes on Ukraine’s defense industries.
Ukraine’s state grid operator Ukrenergo said Friday’s attack deliberately targeted thermal and hydropower plants in central and western regions.
In a statement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that Ukraine’s Kaniv and Dniester hydroelectric plants were attacked and accused Moscow of risking an ecological disaster similar to destruction of the Kakhovka dam in June 2023.
And Kiev and Moscow they accused the other of destroying the dambut the various Russian claims – that it was hit by a missile or brought down by explosives – do not explain an explosion so powerful that it was recorded on seismic monitors in the area.
The dam destruction led to deadly floods, threatened crops, threatened drinking water supplies for thousands and unleashed environmental disaster.
Zelensky also warned that other countries would be threatened if the dams were struck. The Dnister Hydroelectric Station, located near the Ukrainian city of Novodnistrovsk, is about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the border with Moldova.
“Not only Ukraine is under threat, but also Moldova,” Zelensky said. “The water will not stop at the border.”
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private electricity provider, also said three of its thermal power plants were damaged in the attacks. He announced an emergency power outage in the city of Odessa, leaving many neighborhoods without power.
Five people, including a 5-year-old girl, were injured during the attack in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, local governor Serhiy Lysak said.
He later said another man was killed and another wounded in a separate drone strike on Friday.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian police said rescuers recovered the body of a 66-year-old woman from a building in the Mykolayiv region that was hit by a Russian missile on Thursday night.
Bombing in western Ukraine caused Poland’s armed forces to scram their own aircraft, the country’s operational command said on social media.
Last week, Warsaw demanded an explanation from Moscow after one of its missiles briefly drifted into Polish airspace during a major missile attack in Ukraine, prompting the NATO member to activate F-16 fighter jets.
Romania’s defense ministry also said on Friday it had launched an investigation after debris that appeared to have come from a drone was found on its territory Thursday night in an agricultural area of Braila county, near the border with Ukraine.
He gave no additional details, although since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine, NATO member Romania confirmed drone fragments on its territory in several cases.
Belgorod also came under fire on Friday, Russia’s Defense Ministry wrote on social media. It said it shot down 15 Ukrainian shells, with falling debris destroying a number of residential buildings. No casualties were reported.
Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov later said on social media that a man was killed as a result of a separate drone strike that hit an apartment building.