Russia targets energy infrastructure as temperatures hover around 0°C. Ukraine reported, early in the morning of Thursday, November 28, a “massive attack”. “Once again, the energy sector is under massive attack from the enemy”the Ministry of Energy said on Facebook. Emergency power cuts were implemented in particular in kyiv, Odessa and Dnipro, said the operator DTEK.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the strikes were his response to the firing of American ATACMS missiles on Russian soil. According to him, 90 missiles and 100 explosive drones were used in this attack and 17 targets were destroyed. He said Wednesday’s record explosive drone attack was also part of that response.
The governor of the Lviv region reported shortly before 10 a.m. “523 000 subscribers (…) without electricity because of the morning strikes”. Rivne regional authorities said 280,000 people were without running water. In the neighboring Volyn region, 215,000 residents are plunged into darkness, according to the governor.
The western region of Ivano-Frankivsk is also experiencing power cuts, as is Khmelnytsky, in central Ukraine, but they have not quantified the population affected. In total, more than a million Ukrainians are without electricity in the west of the country.
A nationwide air alert was issued Thursday morning. The Ukrainian Air Force says it intercepted 79 missiles and 35 Russian explosive drones during the night during this new attack, which notably targeted the regions of Odessa, Kirovograd, Kherson and Mykolaiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of hitting its energy infrastructure with cluster bombs. “These cluster munitions make it significantly more difficult for our rescuers and electrical engineers to eliminate the consequences of strikes, and this is a completely despicable escalation of Russian terrorist tactics.”he stressed on social networks.
Russia has been shelling civilian areas across Ukraine since its invasion of the country began in February 2022 and has stepped up its strikes as winter approaches, particularly targeting energy infrastructure. These attacks prove that Ukraine “needs air defense systems now”, and the insistence of Volodymyr Zelensky. “This is especially important in winter, when we need to protect our infrastructure against deliberate attacks by the Russians”he insisted again.
