1 dead, six injured as Russian airstrike hits Ukraine’s energy infrastructure

May 8 (UPI) – Authorities said Russia fired waves of cruise and ballistic missiles, missiles and drones against civilian and energy infrastructure targets across Ukraine overnight, killing at least one person and wounding six.

More than 50 missiles and 20 drones were fired against power generation and distribution networks across much of the country from Poltava and Zaporizhzhia in the east to Kiev in the center and Ivano-Frankivsk and Vinnytsia in the far west, President Volodymyr Zelensky said a post on X.

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Zelensky noted that the “massive” attack came on a day of “commemoration and victory over Nazism in World War II,” a holiday that usually marks the anniversary of Germany’s unconditional surrender to the Allies on May 8, 1945 in Ukraine becomes.

A 65-year-old woman was killed by shellfire in her home in a village 100 miles northeast of Kherson. A 40-year-old man was seriously injured and two women, aged 47 and 65, suffered blast injuries as artillery fire on the settlement continued throughout the morning, the Kherson military administration said.

Parts of the city of Kherson were plunged into darkness after critical infrastructure as well as the main railway line connecting Kherson to the capital Kiev were hit and damaged, Kherson Governor Oleksandr Prokudin wrote in a social media update.

An attack on energy facilities in the Oleksandriiskyi district of the Kirovohrad region of central Ukraine injured an eight-year-old child and damaged 13 houses and more than two dozen garages, Governor Andrii Raikovychin said in a post on social media.

According to regional governor Filip Pronin, a drone strike set fire to an important infrastructure facility in Poltava province.

The overnight attacks caused “severe” damage to three thermal power plants belonging to DTEK, the country’s largest private energy supplier. However, the company did not provide any information about which of its plants were affected.

In the Kiev region, a 62-year-old woman and a 34-year-old man were hospitalized after they were injured in an attack on the city of Brovary, where civilian infrastructure was set ablaze by falling debris from a missile fired by air defenses. wrote Mayor Ihor Sapozhko on social media.

Kiev residents also reported explosions in the city around 5:30 a.m. local time, the regional military administration reported.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the overnight attacks were in retaliation for a series of recent Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil processing and distribution infrastructure.