KYIV: Russian strikes left hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians without electricity, regional officials said Thursday, after Kyiv warned of a “massive” Russian attack on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
Ukraine has been appealing to allies for more robust air defence systems to thwart Russian attacks on the war-battered country’s power system.
“As of now, 523,000 subscribers in the Lviv region are without electricity,“ regional head Maksym Kozytsky said on social media.
The western region, which borders EU and NATO member Poland, has been spared the worst of the fighting of Russia’s 33-month invasion but has been targeted in Russian drone and missile attacks sporadically.
Officials meanwhile said 280,000 households were cut off in the western Rivne region and another 215,000 in the Volyn region.
AFP journalists in Kyiv heard blasts ring out over the capital overnight as air defence systems targeted Russian drones and missiles.
City officials said Moscow had launched a “combined” drone and missile attack on Kyiv with air-launched cruise missiles and “various types of drones”.
Debris from projectiles that were shot down damaged buildings in at least two districts, they said.
Residents of the western Khmelnytsky region were also cut off from electricity while the Russian attacks targeted “critical infrastructure” in Ivano-Frankivsk region, officials said.
Ukrenergo, the Ukrainian electricity grid operator, said emergency blackouts were being introduced across the country.
The latest bout of strikes have piled pressure on the battered Ukrainian grid that has already come under several large-scale attacks this year.
