By Pavel Polityuk
KYIV (Reuters) -Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine killed six people, including two children, and forced nationwide power outages as Moscow implemented a targeted campaign to destroy the Ukrainian energy system, officials said on Wednesday.
Debris from downed weapons littered the Ukrainian capital and caused fires in many districts, Timur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said on the Telegram app.
“Most regions of Ukraine were targeted,” Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk said. “This is the second such attack in a month, indicating a methodical campaign by the enemy to destroy Ukraine’s energy sector ahead of winter.”
Hrynchuk said Russia was now also targeting repair teams working at energy facilities.
Russia launched 405 drones and 28 missiles during the attacks, the Ukrainian Air Force said. Air defence units shot down 333 drones and 16 missiles.
Two people were killed in the Kyiv attack, and four, including two children, died in the aftermath of Russian strikes on the nearby region, Ukraine’s emergency service said.
Ten people were rescued from a fire in a high-rise building in Kyiv’s district of Dniprovskyi, said Mayor Vitali Klitschko, with a child among the five people admitted to hospital.
Officials said fires broke out in the districts of Desnianskyi, Darnytskyi and Pecherskyi, the last home to the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery, a symbol of Ukrainian spiritual and cultural history.
Ukrainian officials said the attacks ran through most of the night and early Wednesday, initially with ballistic missiles and then drone strikes.
“At 7:20 a.m. there was an explosion, and within a moment, I started to feel pain on my face. I immediately started screaming. When I swiped my face, I thought I felt tears on my hand, but I was bleeding,” Nadiia Zinchuk, a 24-year-old shop employee, told Reuters near a building hit in Kyiv.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had struck Ukrainian energy infrastructure in a response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilian targets.
NATIONWIDE POWER OUTAGES
Emergency power outages were announced in most regions of Ukraine, as a result of the Russian attacks.
In the central region of Poltava, oil and gas facilities were damaged in the Myrhorod district, the regional governor said.
In the frontline Southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia, which has been subjected to continued strikes and shelling by Russian forces, 13 people were wounded in overnight attacks, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said on Wednesday.
City and regional officials have again started to roll out help stations, called “points of invincibility”, where residents facing outages of power, heating and water can warm up, charge their phones and get food and hot drinks.
Russia has consistently attacked Ukrainian energy facilities since launching a full-scale invasion of the country in 2022, maintaining they are a legitimate military target in the war.
(Additional reporting by Yurii Kovalenko, Anna Voitenko and Yuliia Dysa; Writing by Lidia Kelly and Olena Harmash; Editing by Ed Osmond)
