Russia carried out a barrage of drone and missile strikes on energy infrastructure across Ukraine overnight, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday.
“The main target of the attack was the energy supply, but normal residential buildings were also damaged, and there was damage to the railway,” Zelenskyy said in a post on Telegram.
At least one person was killed in the Kyiv region and eight others were injured, he added.
Ukraine’s power grid operator Ukrenergo said the attacks prompted emergency power outages in a number of regions, including Kyiv.
Zelenskyy said almost 300 drones and 50 cruise and ballistic missiles were launched at the Ukrainian regions of Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Poltava and Sumy overnight.
The governor of Odesa, Oleh Kiper, wrote on Telegram that a drone attack on the region’s energy infrastructure sparked several fires but that all of them had been extinguished.
Moscow has ramped up its attacks on Ukraine’s power grid in recent weeks, increasing the toll on millions of civilians amid harsh winter temperatures.
Russian-controlled areas also report attacks
The Russian Defense Ministry said 86 Ukrainian drones had been intercepted over Russian-controlled areas and the Crimean Peninsula overnight.
Yevgeny Balitsky, Moscow-installed governor of the Russian-controlled parts of Zaporizhzhia, said the region was facing an electricity outage after a major Ukrainian attack on energy infrastructure there.
Meanwhile, the Russian-installed leader of Luhansk, a Ukrainian city also occupied by Russia, said a fuel reservoir caught fire after a Ukrainian drone attack on an oil depot.
One man died in a Ukrainian drone strike in Russia’s western Bolgorod region, according to authorities there.
Talks stall as war’s 4th anniversary approaches
Ukraine says Russia has deployed more than 1,300 combat drones, 1,400 guided aerial bombs and 96 missiles this week alone.
“That is why we must strengthen our air defense,” Zelensky stressed, adding that that Ukraine needs systems to counter ballistic missiles. “Each such package protects critical infrastructure and maintains normality of life.”
The latest attacks come just two days before Russia’s war in Ukraine enters its fifth year.
US-mediated negotiations between the two countries to end the war are ongoing. A main sticking point is Moscow’s demand that Kyiv withdraw from parts of the eastern Donbas region it still controls. Kyiv has rejected that proposal.
Their most recent talks in Geneva last week ended without a breakthrough.
Police officer killed in Lviv ‘terrorist attack’
Separately, at least one police officer was killed and several other security personnel were injured in a series of blasts in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, authorities said Sunday.
Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said police had detained a suspect and opened a criminal investigation.
“This was a terrorist attack,” he said in a video posted to Telegram.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, police had been responding to a reported break-in at a shop in Lviv’s old town at around midnight when the explosions went off.
Officials said a 23-year-old policewoman was killed and some 24 other people were injured. Mayor Sadovyi said two vehicles, including a police car, were damaged in the incident.
Edited by: Jenipher Camino Gonzalez
