Russia hits Ukraine’s power grid, highlights air defense needs
KYIV — Russia launched a massive missile and drone attack on Ukrainian cities early Friday that destroyed energy infrastructure, caused power blackouts in different regions, and killed several people — highlighting the country’s urgent need for stronger air defenses outside Kyiv.
The strikes, which hit Ukraine’s largest hydroelectric power plant in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, amounted to “the largest attack on the Ukrainian energy sector in recent times,” Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that the strikes showed that Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv, in the northeast, urgently need Patriot air defense systems to protect infrastructure and civilians as Ukraine waits for more Western aid, including $60 billion blocked in Congress by House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Lousiana.
Ukraine has long requested more air defense to protect major cities from such attacks. Defending Kharkiv — just 19 miles from the Russian border — is especially complicated because missiles can travel so quickly from inside Russia that even advanced air defense systems would struggle to respond in time.
“There are no delays in Russian missiles, as in aid packages to our state,” Zelensky said. “Shaheds do not have indecision, like some politicians,” he continued, referring to the Iranian drones that Russia regularly launches at Ukraine. “It is important to understand the cost of delays and delayed decisions.”
Adrienne Watson, spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, condemned the strikes Friday and said the United States must “provide Ukraine more air defenses to defend against these attacks.”
“Lives are on the line,” Watson wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “House Republicans must pass the national security supplemental ASAP.”
Early Friday, 15 blasts were heard in Kharkiv, and power and water supplies were cut off, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. The strike left the city in a total blackout — meaning even the siren system that warns residents about incoming air attacks was not functioning. Instead, air raid alarms would be sent directly to mobile devices. Police and other emergency officials would also walk the streets with loudspeakers to announce any alarms, officials said.
By Friday evening, the power was still out in Kharkiv, officials said.
Traffic lights and emergency service phones also were not working, although new numbers have been shared for civilians in need of assistance, officials said. The strikes in Zaporizhzhia also struck a trolley bus.
“Even last winter, the attacks on our energy system were not as big as last night,” Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the chief executive of Ukrenergo, the state energy supplier, told Ukrainian news outlet Radio Svoboda.
Mariia Tsaturian, chief communications officer at Ukrenergo, said that the company’s ultra high voltage substations “were damaged today, some of them severely.”
After severe attacks on its infrastructure last year, Ukrenergo bulked up its security protocols and protection of its facilities, Tsaturiatn said in a phone interview. Such measures saved lives Friday, she said, because employees are aware that power facilities are a key target and “know what to do during the air raid alert.”
The attack caused power outages in the Dnipropetrovsk region, where 1,060 miners were working underground at coal mining facilities run by Ukrainian energy conglomerate DTEK. All work has been halted, and most of the miners have since been evacuated, the company said Friday.
Maksym Timchenko, DTEK’s chief executive, was on a flight from D.C. to London when the strikes hit early Friday. In Washington, he had met business and congressional leaders to advocate for investment in Ukraine’s energy sector and help financing the decentralization of its energy supply, a strategy that he hopes will prevent massive damage from Russian attacks. For instance, transitioning energy production to wind turbine farms, would spread out the targets, he said.