KYIV, Ukraine — Russia unleashed an enormous missile barrage targeting energy infrastructure across Ukraine early Thursday, hitting residential buildings and killing no less than five people in the most important scale such attack in three weeks, officials said.
4 people were killed within the Lviv region after a missile struck a residential area, Lviv Gov. Maksym Kozytskyi said.
Three buildings were destroyed by fire after the strike and rescue employees were combing through rubble in search of more possible victims, he said.
A fifth person was killed and two others wounded in multiple strikes within the Dnipropetrovsk region that targeted its energy infrastructure and industrial facilities, Gov. Serhii Lysak said.
Air raid sirens wailed for hours across Ukraine, including the capital, Kyiv, where explosions occurred in two western areas of town.
Air raid sirens wailed through the night across Ukraine, including the capital, Kyiv, where explosions occurred in two western areas of town.
Defense systems were activated across the country, and it wasn’t clear what number of missiles struck targets or were intercepted.
Town’s administration said Kyiv was attacked with each missiles and exploding drones and that many were intercepted but that its energy infrastructure was hit.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said explosions were reported within the Holosiivskyi district of town, and two people were wounded within the Sviatoshynskyi district, also on the west side of town, and cars were ablaze there, the mayor added.
The alarm in Kyiv was lifted just before 8 a.m., with the air raid sirens falling silent after some seven hours.
The missile barrage struck as Russia pushed its advance in Ukraine’s eastern stronghold of Bakhmut, where a grinding fight between the 2 sides has gone on for six months and reduced town to a smoldering wasteland.
It also got here hours after U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited Kyiv for talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky on extending an agreement that permits Ukraine to ship grain from its Black Sea ports and permits Russia to export food and fertilizers.
In eastern Ukraine, 15 missiles struck Kharkiv and the outlying northeastern region, hitting residential buildings, in response to Kharkiv Gov. Oleh Syniehubov.
He promised to disclose more details concerning the scale of the damage or any casualties in Ukraine’s second-largest city.
“Objects of critical infrastructure is again within the crosshairs of the occupants,” he said in a Telegram post.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov reported on Telegram that there have been “problems with electricity” in some parts of town.
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The governor of the southern Odesa region, Maksym Marchenko, also reported strikes on Odesa, saying that energy facilities and residential buildings were hit.
Marchenko warned on Telegram for people to remain in shelters.
The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is occupied by Russian forces, lost power consequently of the missile attacks, in response to nuclear state operator Energoatom.
It was the sixth time the plant was in a state of blackout because it was taken over by Russia months ago, forcing it to depend on 18 diesel generators that may run the station for 10 days, Energoatom said.
Nuclear plants need constant power to run cooling systems and avoid a meltdown.
“The countdown has begun,” Energoatom said.
Ukraine’s Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko condemned the missile strikes as “one other barbaric massive attack on the energy infrastructure of Ukraine,” saying in a Facebook post that facilities in Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk and Zhytomyr regions had been targeted.
Ukrainian Railways reported power outages in certain areas, with 15 trains delayed as much as an hour.
Preventive emergency power cuts were applied in Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk and Odesa regions, supplier DTEK said.
Klitschko said 40% of consumers in Kyiv were without heating due to emergency power cuts. Water supplies were uninterrupted, he said.
More explosions were reported within the northern city of Chernihiv and the western Lviv region, in addition to within the cities of Dnipro, Lutsk and Rivne. Ukrainian media also report explosions within the western regions of Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil.
Russia has been hitting Ukraine with these massive missile attacks since last October.
Initially, the barrages targeting the country’s energy infrastructure took place weekly, plunging your entire cities into darkness, but became more opened up in time, with commentators speculating that Moscow could also be saving up ammunition.
The last massive barrage took place on Feb. 16.
