At least one million people without power in Ukraine after ‘massive’ Russian attack
At least one million people are without power in Ukraine after Russia staged a “massive” attack on the country’s energy infrastructure in the early hours of Thursday. The missile strikes come as temperatures have dropped to freezing, and a UN official has warned that as Russia continues to target Ukraine’s power grid, this winter could become the “harshest since the start of the war”.
“Once again, the energy sector is under massive enemy attack. Attacks on energy facilities are taking place across Ukraine,” Energy Minister German Galushchenko said in a Facebook post.
National power grid operator Ukrenergo had “urgently introduced emergency power cuts”, he added, as temperatures across the country dropped to around 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit).
In western Ukraine alone, more than one million people were without power on Thursday morning.
“As of now, 523,000 subscribers in Lviv region are without electricity,” regional head Maksym Kozytskyi said on social media, while authorities said 280,000 were cut off in the western Rivne region and another 215,000 in the Volyn region.
A senior UN official, Rosemary DiCarlo, this month denounced the rise in civilian casualties in the nearly three-year conflict between Ukraine and Russia, noting Moscow’s targeting of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure may make this winter the “harshest since the start of the war”.
Ukraine’s military said earlier Thursday that an air raid alert had been declared across the country “due to a missile threat” in a message on Telegram.
“Kharkiv, go to the shelters!” it warned.
Read more on FRANCE 24 English
Read also:
Russia says Ukraine has launched two more ATACMS missile strikes
NATO and Ukraine hold talks over Russia's new hypersonic missile
Russia, Ukraine trade aerial strikes amid fears of escalation
