Russian missile and drone attacks have damaged large parts of Ukraine's electrical installations. The Ministry of Energy announced the implementation of “restrictive measures” throughout its territory.
“Tomorrow November 18, all regions will be forced to apply consumption restriction measures”announced the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy on social networks this Sunday, due to “damage to electrical installations during massive missile and drone attack”.
Ten dead
The Ukrainian energy network, already very fragile, faced on Sunday one of the most significant Russian attacks in recent months. The strikes also left 10 dead and around twenty injured across the country, according to authorities. These strikes occur at a time when Ukraine, in difficulty on the military front, fears losing American support with the imminent return of Donald Trump to the White House. They also arrive two days after a call between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Russian President Vladimir Putin, a resumption of contact deemed dangerous by kyiv.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reports more than 120 missiles and 90 drones launched. He described a “ massive combined attack that targeted all regions of Ukraine », and mainly energy infrastructure. The spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force described a “ hellish night “, claiming that the country's air defense destroyed 144 targets. According to kyiv, thanks to its numerous drone and missile attacks, Moscow has destroyed half of Ukraine's energy capacity.
Polish border hit
Power outages affected the kyiv region as well as several areas in the west, south and east, such as Odessa and Dnipropetrovsk. Power began to be restored at midday in some areas, according to DTEK, the Ukrainian energy operator. This is the tenth major attack against the Ukrainian energy network since the start of the year, according to the operator Ukrenergo.
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The human toll – 10 dead – is varied: two employees of the Ukrzaliznytsia railways were killed and three injured during the bombing of a depot in Nikopol, in the south of the country, as well as a woman victim of a missile in the usually more spare region of Lviv, in the west of the country. In the south, two employees died. Finally, two people were killed in Kherson, and two others in Mykolaiv, other southern cities, according to local authorities.
An extremely rare occurrence, Russian missiles and drones have reached Transcarpathia, a region located in the far west of the country, far from the front and bordering Poland and Hungary. As a result, the Polish army announced on Sunday November 17 that it had taken off fighter planes and mobilized forces to defend its territory, a usual procedure in the event of danger near its borders.
