(Kyiv) Ukrainian energy infrastructure, including a power station, was damaged by a major nighttime Russian attack which injured seven employees, the country’s authorities announced Thursday, whose fragile electricity network is struggling to resist repeated strikes targeting it. .
This is the seventh “massive” attack against Ukrainian power plants in the last three months, according to the operator DTEK, which has forced Ukraine to impose frequent and crippling power cuts.
“The Russians attacked one of DTEK’s thermal power plants,” the company said in a statement Thursday, adding that the strikes injured three of its employees and caused “serious damage.”
The Energy Ministry said that “a number of energy infrastructures” had been attacked by the Russian army in four regions, including Kyiv.
In total, “seven employees were injured”, one of whom is in serious condition, the ministry said, referring to “destroyed” equipment without giving further details.
AFP journalists present in the capital heard air alert sirens sounding in the early hours of Thursday, as citizens took refuge in underground shelters.
The Ukrainian air force, for its part, indicated that Russia had fired nine missiles and 27 suicide drones of Iranian design, adding that it had shot down almost all of them.
Russia has stepped up its attacks on Ukraine’s electricity production and distribution network in recent months, destroying half of its energy capacity, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Serious crisis” in sight
The general director of DTEK, Maxime Timchenko, warned that Ukraine risked being “faced with a serious crisis this winter” if its Western partners do not mobilize.
“I implore allies to help us defend our energy system and rebuild it in time,” he added in a statement posted on social media, explaining that a power plant already damaged in previous attacks had been touched again.
Kyiv is urging the West to help rebuild its power grid, a project that requires significant investment, and provide more air defenses to counter Russian strikes.
Russia still denies attacking civilian targets, but has admitted targeting energy sites in response, according to it, to Ukrainian attacks against its own hydrocarbon infrastructure.
The same night, several oil depots in Russia were targeted by Ukrainian drones, as well as the town of Slaviansk-on-Kuban, in the Krasnodar region (south), where a woman was killed, according to the regional governor, Veniamin Kondratiev.
A fire broke out in an oil refinery in the republic of Adygea (south) “following a drone attack,” Governor Mourat Koumpilov said on Telegram.
A tank also caught fire early in the morning at a major oil refinery in Platonovka, in the Tambov region (center), “probably” because of a drone, Governor Maxim Egorov said on Telegram.
The Ukrainian special services (SBU) are behind the attacks on the two refineries, a source within the security services told AFP on Thursday.
These infrastructures “processed and stored raw materials and finished products which were then used by the Russian army,” according to this source, who predicted more attacks of this type to come.
Russia continues to bomb regions near the front line, especially in the south and east.
Two people were killed and three others injured in the last 24 hours in the southern region of Kherson, its governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Thursday.
In the Kharkiv region, where Russia recently launched a major surprise ground offensive, Governor Oleg Synegoubov said a woman was killed by a Russian strike.
Two people were also killed in the eastern Donetsk region, including one in the frontline town of Toretsk, according to Governor Vadym Filachkin.
The Ukrainian army stressed on Thursday that Russian forces had “become more active” in the Toretsk sector, and were trying to seize their positions in two neighboring villages, Shumy and New York.