Russia unleashed a massive barrage of drones and missiles across Ukraine on Monday, targeting energy infrastructure. At least three people were killed and power outages were reported across the country.
The barrage began around midnight and continued past dawn in what appears to be the largest Russian attack on Ukraine in weeks.
Russian forces have fired drones, cruise missiles and Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missiles at 15 Ukrainian regions, more than half of the country, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Monday morning.
“Energy infrastructure has again become a target of Russian terrorists. Unfortunately, there is damage in several regions,” Shmyhal said, adding that Ukraine’s state-owned power grid operator, Ukrenergo, was forced to carry out emergency power outages to stabilize the system.
He called on Ukraine’s allies to supply kyiv with long-range weapons and allow them to be used on targets in Russia.
“To stop the barbaric shelling of Ukrainian cities, it is necessary to destroy the place from where Russian missiles are launched,” Shmyhal said. “We are counting on the support of our allies and we will certainly make Russia pay.”
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, several groups of Russian drones were moving towards the eastern, northern, southern and central regions of Ukraine, followed by several cruise and ballistic missiles.
Explosions were heard in the capital, kyiv. The city’s electricity and water supplies were disrupted by the attack, Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
At least three people were killed — one in the western city of Lutsk, one in the central Dnipropetrovsk region and one in the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region in the southeast, local officials said. Thirteen others were injured — one in the Kiev region surrounding the Ukrainian capital, five in Lutsk, three in the southern Mykolaiv region and four in the neighboring Odessa region.
Power outages
Power outages and damage to civilian infrastructure and residential buildings were reported across the country, from the Sumy region in the east, to the Mykolaiv and Odessa regions in the south, to the Rivne region in the west.
In Sumy, an eastern province bordering Russia, the local administration said 194 localities had complete power outages, while 19 others had partial blackouts.
Ukraine’s private energy company, DTEK, has instituted emergency power outages, saying in an online statement that “energy workers across the country are working 24/7 to restore light to Ukrainian homes.”
Following the shelling and power outages, regional officials across Ukraine were ordered to open “invincibility points” — shelter-like places where people can charge their devices and cool off during power outages, Prime Minister Shmyhal said. Such points were first opened in Ukraine in the fall of 2022, when Russia targeted the country’s energy infrastructure with weekly shelling.
In neighboring Poland, the military said Polish and NATO air defenses were activated in the eastern part of the country following the attack.
Ukrainian drone attack
In Russia, meanwhile, authorities reported a Ukrainian drone attack overnight and Monday morning.
Four people were injured in Russia’s central Saratov region, where drones struck residential buildings in two cities. One drone crashed into a residential building in the city of Saratov, and another struck a residential building in the town of Engels, which is home to a military airfield that had previously been attacked, local officials said.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced that a total of 22 Ukrainian drones were intercepted overnight and in the morning over eight Russian regions, including the Saratov and Yaroslavl regions in central Russia.