Ukraine said Russian forces had unleashed a “massive” missile attack on the country’s infrastructure on Wednesday, forcing officials to impose emergency power cuts to relieve pressure on the country’s battered grid.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that air defenses had shot down at least 30 of the more than 40 missiles that Russia launched in a barrage targeting gas and energy facilities.
“Another massive Russian attack. It’s the middle of winter, and the target for the Russians remains unchanged: our energy infrastructure,” he said in a statement on social media from the capital, where temperatures hovered just above freezing.
Air, land and sea-based missiles — including at least one ballistic missile — were launched in the barrage, along with dozens of attack drones, according to Ukraine’s Air Force. It said energy facilities in the Kharkiv, Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions had suffered damage, but emphasized that not all missiles that evaded air defenses had struck their targets.
Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed that it had used “precision weapons and strike drones” against critical gas and energy infrastructure, asserting in a statement that “all designated facilities have been hit.”
The Russian military has repeatedly targeted the Ukrainian energy infrastructure in campaigns to wear down the country in wintertime. The attacks on power plants and substations have left the country’s energy network on the verge of collapse, experts say.
On Wednesday, air-raid sirens wailed at around 5:45 a.m. in Kyiv, the capital, as most of the country was put on alert for missile launches. Poland’s military protectively scrambled fighter jets.
As Ukrainians huddled in shelters into a third hour and the air force warned of incoming cruise missiles, the energy minister, Herman Galushchenko, announced emergency steps.
“Due to the massive attack, the transmission system operator is applying preventive restriction measures,” Mr. Galushchenko wrote in a statement on Facebook.
Emergency power shutdowns were briefly applied in six regions across the country, including Kharkiv in the northeast and Zaporizhzhia in the south, according to Ukrenergo, the national electricity operator.
Two critical infrastructure facilities were hit in western Ukraine’s Lviv region, according to the head of the regional military administration, Maksym Kozytskyi. He later said that two houses and two outbuildings had also been damaged. Facilities in the Ivano-Frankivsk region also came under attack, the authorities there said.
The attack came a day after Moscow threatened to retaliate for what it said was Ukraine’s latest use of Western-made long-range missiles to strike inside Russia.
Ukraine’s energy network has been so battered by the strikes that officials have been forced to seek out alternatives — like renting floating power plants and scavenging scrapped ones from the region — to ease pressure on the grid and prevent a crisis.
