KYIV: A Russian missile and drone barrage damaged a Ukrainian power plant and other energy facilities overnight, officials said on Thursday (Jun 20), the latest in a series of strikes that have pushed its grid to the brink.
The targeted aerial barrages over recent months have crippled Ukrainian electricity generation capacity and forced officials to impose rolling blackouts and import supplies from neighbouring EU states.
“The enemy attacked a number of energy infrastructure facilities,” the energy ministry said, adding that the barrage of Russian projectiles targeted energy-linked sites in four regions, including the capital, without elaborating.
AFP journalists in the capital heard air raid sirens ringing out over the capital in the early hours of Thursday.
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, said the aerial attacks had caused “serious damage” at one of its thermal power plants, and that three of its employees had been wounded in the attack.
“This is already the seventh mass attack on the company’s thermal power plant in the last three months,” the company said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that those attacks have halved generator capacity in the war-battered country compared to one year ago and urged allies to send more air defence systems to protect vital infrastructure.
