a new “massive” Russian attack targeted energy infrastructure

The Russian armed forces launched a new attack on Ukrainian energy infrastructure during the night of Friday June 21 to Saturday June 22. “Installations [de l’opérateur ukrainien] Ukrenergo, in the Zaporizhia (south) and Lviv (west) regions were damaged”, declared the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy, specifying that two employees had been injured and hospitalized in Zaporizhia. According to the ministry, this is the eighth attack “massive” against Ukrainian power plants over the past three months, forcing frequent power cuts.

Ukrainian authorities indicated Thursday that energy infrastructure, including a power station, had been damaged by a major nighttime Russian attack which left seven of their employees injured.

Russia, by increasing its attacks, has destroyed half of Ukraine’s energy capacity, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. On Thursday, the latter called for the installation of solar panels and energy storage units “in every school and in every hospital, as soon as possible.”

The general director of the operator DTEK, Maxime Timchenko, had warned that Ukraine risked beinge “faced with a serious crisis this winter”, if its Western partners did not mobilize. kyiv is urging the latter to help it rebuild its electricity network, a project which requires significant investment, and to provide it with more air defense equipment to counter Russian bombings.

In this context, Washington has “made the difficult but necessary decision” to now give priority to Ukraine over other allies in the supply of missiles used for anti-aircraft defense.