Russia targets Ukraine’s power grid

RRussia destroyed and damaged Ukrainian energy facilities overnight as President Vladimir Putin’s forces continued their attacks to cripple the country’s power grid.

Russia has targeted the central regions of Dnipropetrovsk and Vinnytsia as well as the Kyiv region and parts of the Donetsk region in the east, the Energy Ministry said in a Telegram post on Thursday morning. The ministry did not disclose which infrastructure was hit.

DTEK, the country’s largest electricity producer, said three workers were injured in the attack, which caused severe damage to one of its thermal power plants. This was the seventh attack on the company’s power plants in the past three months, DTEK said on Telegram.

Read more: The energy war between Ukraine and all parties involved

The destruction occurred despite Ukraine shooting down all 27 explosive-laden Shahed drones and five of the nine missiles fired by Russia overnight, Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk reported.

Ukraine’s air defenses failed to intercept Iskander-M ballistic missiles fired from Russia’s Voronezh region, underscoring the country’s vulnerability to this type of weapon, as the modern air defense systems donated by Kyiv’s Western allies are not enough to cover the entire territory of the country.

Russia’s relentless bombardment of Ukraine’s power grid has led to rolling blackouts this year, forcing authorities into a race against time to repair infrastructure before winter, when demand for electricity is at its highest.

Read more: Ukraine cannot win the war

President Putin has so far shown himself unwilling to engage with the Ukrainian peace plan. For example, he signed a military aid agreement with North Korea and toured Vietnam, ignoring US criticism.

Russia said the Ukrainian military also launched drone strikes on its territory overnight. The Defense Ministry in Moscow reported the shooting down of nine drones over the southern regions of Adygea and Krasnodar. A woman died when a drone fell on a house in Slavyansk on the Cuban Sea, a city in the Krasnodar region, the governor said on Telegram. Individual drones were shot down over the Belgorod, Rostov and Oryol regions, the ministry said.

The drone strike sparked a fire at a fuel depot in Adygea, the region’s governor Murat Kumpilov said on Telegram. Tambov Governor Maksim Yegorov said a suspected drone strike set fire to a fuel reservoir in the region. Ukraine has not made any public statements about whether it carried out the attacks.