At least 100 Russian missiles and drones attacked Ukraine overnight. The barrage targeted energy sites across the country, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday.
Ukraine’s power facilities have been hit hard by Russian attacks since the outset of the full-scale invasion, causing significant damage and energy shortages.
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“The enemy launched 53 missiles of various types and 47 attack drones,” an air force spokesman said, adding that it shot down 35 of the missiles and all but one of the drones.
Nevertheless, two thermal power plants were damaged in the attack, a DTEK (Ukraine’s largest private energy company) operator was reported by AFP as saying. He did not specify where they were located.
“It was another extremely difficult night for the Ukrainian energy sector. The enemy struck two of our thermal power plants. The equipment was seriously damaged,” the company said in a statement on Telegram.
It was the sixth major attack on DTEK thermal power plants since mid-March, it added.
One reconstruction operator in Ukraine, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Kyiv Post that if the government did not begin building new thermal power plants immediately, the country could experience massive freezing of municipal heating pipes, as soon as temperatures drop in November.
“These new thermal plants can’t just be shipped and installed,” he said. “It’s very complicated. They need to be rebuilt from scratch, and right away.”
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Five regions were targeted – Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovograd, Ivano-Frankivsk and Zaporizhzhia – according to Ukraine’s Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko.
The ministry warned that power restrictions were likely on Saturday evening as a result of the attacks.
President Volodymyr Zelensky continued pressing Western partners by saying Moscow was trying to “exploit” a lack of “determination” among Ukraine’s key backers and repeated his call for more air defense systems.
“Russia’s main goal is to normalize terror, to exploit the lack of sufficient air defense and determination of Ukraine’s partners,” he said in a social media post.
“This is a test of humanity and determination for the free world. Either we pass this test together, or the world will plunge into even greater destabilization and chaos,” he added.
Previously he had chided the US restrictions on using American-made weapons against targets in Russia just across the border, where the Kremlin has been amassing troops for a lethal push into the border towns north of Kharkiv.
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