Russia hits Ukraine energy plants
RUSSIAN missiles and drones struck nearly a dozen Ukrainian energy infrastructure facilities yesterday, causing serious damage at three Sovietera thermal power plants and blackouts in multiple regions, officials said.
Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 39 of 55 missiles and 20 of 21 attack drones used for the attack, which piles more pressure on the energy system more than two years after Russia launched its fullscale invasion. Two people were injured in the Kyiv region and one was hurt in the Kirovohrad region, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said. Energy Minister German Galushchenko said power generation and transmission facilities in the Poltava, Kirovohrad, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, IvanoFrankivsk and Vinnytsia regions were targeted.
About 350 rescuers raced to minimise the damage to energy facilities, 30 homes, public transport vehicles, cars and a fire station, the interior ministry said. National power grid operator Ukrenergo said it was forced to introduce electricity cuts in nine regions for consumers and it would expand them nationwide for businesses during peak evening hours.
Ukrenergo chief executive Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, interviewed by the Ukrainska Pravda media outlet, said electricity imports would not make up for power shortages. He said hydropower stations had also been hit. Power cuts for industrial users were ‘‘almost guaranteed’’ but interruptions for domestic users would depend on how well they reduced consumption, he said. Russia’s defence ministry said it struck Ukraine’s militaryindustrial complex and energy facilities in retaliation for Kyiv’s strikes on Russian energy facilities.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted the attacks were launched on the day Ukraine marked the end of World War 2. ‘‘This is how the Kremlin marks the end of World War 2 in Europe, with a massive strike, attempting to disrupt the lives of our people with its Nazism,’’ he said in his nightly video address.
Ukraine’s parliament passed a Bill yesterday that would allow some convicts to enlist in the army in return for a chance at parole, part of a push to generate fresh manpower for the country’s outnumbered and exhausted troops.
The move was expected to generate about several thousand new soldiers from a possible pool of up to 20,000 convicts, David Arakhamia, a senior MP said. The Bill, which needs Zelenskyy’s signature to become law, would not allow people convicted of the most serious crimes to enlist, MP Oleksiy Honcharenko said.
Ambassadors from European Union countries agreed yesterday to use windfall profits from Russian central bank assets frozen in the EU for Ukraine’s defence, the Belgian government said.
Ministers still needed to approve the legal text that would result in 90% of the proceeds going into an EUrun fund for military aid for Ukraine, the other 10% going to support Kyiv in other ways, four EU diplomatic sources said. — Reuters