Russia carried out its biggest missile attack in several weeks across Ukraine on Thursday, striking energy facilities in what officials said appeared to be the first salvo of a new air campaign against Ukraine's power grid.
Power outages have been reported in five regions of Ukraine in the west, center and east, reviving memories of multiple airstrikes against the country's critical infrastructure last winter, which caused widespread power outages for millions of Ukrainians during the coldest season of the year.
Ukrainian authorities say at least 18 people have been wounded in the airstrikes, including a 9-year-old girl, and a regional governor said two people were killed in separate Russian airstrikes overnight.
"Winter is coming. Tonight (Russia) has resumed missile attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure," wrote lawmaker Andrii Osadchuk on Platform X.
Grid operator Ukrenergo said it was the first Russian attack on electricity infrastructure in six months and reported damage to facilities in the western and central regions. "There were partial blackouts in the regions of Rivne, Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv," he reported on Telegram.
Ukraine has been racing for months to repair damaged infrastructure after last winter's attacks, which affected nearly half of the country's energy system and forced grid operators to impose periodic, rolling power outages.
This year, Ukraine has better air defenses supplied by the West. Russia, which sent tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine in February 2022, has focused its airstrikes since mid-July on port and grain infrastructure, hampering efforts by Kyiv, a major global grain producer, to export food products.
Russia had no comment on the new airstrikes, carried out as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visits the United States for talks after the UN General Assembly, where he sought to bolster support for Ukraine.
However, Moscow claimed that Ukraine has been attacking targets inside Russia and that Ukrainian drones were destroyed over the annexed Crimean peninsula and the Black Sea overnight.
Valeri Zaluzhni, commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces, reported Thursday that Russia had fired 43 cruise missiles at targets overnight in several waves and that Ukrainian air defenses shot down 36 of them.
Strong explosions shook Kyiv and the surrounding region at dawn, Reuters witnesses said. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said seven people, including a nine-year-old girl, were injured in the capital. Missile debris landed in the city center and an infrastructure facility and several non-residential buildings were damaged, causing a fire, he said.
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said a hotel and several commercial kiosks were damaged in Cherkassy, central Ukraine, and seven people were injured. Emergency services posted a video on Telegram showing rescuers carrying an injured man out on a stretcher as a fire broke out.
The Ministerio del Interior and regional officials reported explosions in the regions of Cherkasy, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskiy, Rivne, Vinnytsia, Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk.
Maksim Kozytski, regional governor of Lviv, said three Russian missiles hit the town of Drohobych in the west, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the border with Poland. Kozytski said an infrastructure facility and warehouses were affected.
In another night attack, two people were killed by the Russian shelling of a dormitory in the southern city of Jershon, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.
A Ukrainian intelligence source said Ukraine's security service and navy, SBU, had attacked the Saky air base in Russian-occupied Crimea overnight, causing "serious damage." The Russian military said it had destroyed 19 Ukrainian drones over Crimea and the Black Sea and three more over other parts of Russia. He did not give details about casualties or damage.
