RUSSIA HITS 3 UKRAINE REGIONS
Missiles rained on energy facilities, with possible casualties
RUSSIA launched a barrage of missiles at Ukrainian power facilities yesterday, 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 Telegram that the Russian strikes targeted the Dnipropetrovsk region in central Ukraine and the western regions of Lviv and IvanoFrankivsk.
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 per cent of its thermal generation and about 35 per cent of its hydropower capacity, officials said. 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 Dnipropetrovsk, Ukrainian air defence shot down 13 Russian missiles, said Governor Serhiy Lysak.
“Energy facilities in Dnipropetrovsk and Kryvyi Rih regions were damaged, fires broke out.”
Lysak said the water supply was disrupted in Kryvyi Rih city.
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 Lviv regional governor Maksym Kozytskyi, urging residents to save electricity, especially during peak evening hours.