Russia targets Ukraine’s power grid in ‘massive’ missile strike, officials say

By Tom Balmforth and Pavel Polityuk

KYIV (Reuters) – Blasts rang out across Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and other cities early on Sunday, as Russia staged its biggest missile attack since August and targeted power facilities with the winter setting in, officials said.

Ukrainians have been bracing for a major attack on the hobbled power system for weeks, fearing crippling damage to the grid that would cause long blackouts and build psychological pressure at a critical moment in the war Russia launched in February 2022.

“Another massive attack on the power system is under way. The enemy is attacking electricity generation and transmission facilities throughout Ukraine,” Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko wrote on Facebook.

Air defences could be heard engaging drones over the capital in the night, and a series of powerful blasts rang out across the city centre as the missile attack was under way in the morning.

The scale of the damage was not immediately clear. Officials cut power supply to numerous city districts, including in Kyiv, the surrounding region and Dnipropetrovsk region, in what they said was a precaution to prevent a surge in case of damage.

Authorities in the Volyn region in northwestern Ukraine said energy infrastructure had sustained damage but did not elaborate. Officials often withhold information on the state of the power system because of the war.

In Mykolaiv in the south, two people were killed in the overnight drone attack, the regional governor said. Blasts shook the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia and the Black Sea port of Odesa, Reuters witnesses said. More blasts were reported in the regions of Kryvyi Rih in the south and Rivne in the west.

“Russia launched one of the largest air attacks: drones and missiles against peaceful cities, sleeping civilians, critical infrastructure,” said Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.

He described the strike as Moscow’s “true response” to leaders who had interacted with President Vladimir Putin, an apparent swipe at German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who placed a phone call to the Russian leader on Friday for the first time since late 2022.

NATO member Poland, which borders Ukraine to the west, said it had scrambled its air force within its airspace as a security precaution due to the Russian attack, which it said used cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and drones.

Poland “activated all available forces and resources at his disposal, the on-duty fighter pairs were scrambled, and the ground-based air defence and radar reconnaissance systems reached the highest state of readiness,” the operational command of its armed forces posted on X.

Ukraine’s air force urged residents to take cover, providing regular updates on the progress of Russian cruise, ballistic and hypersonic missiles it said were hurtling through Ukrainian air space.

In Kyiv, the roof of a residential building caught fire due to falling debris and at least two people were hurt, city officials said on the Telegram messaging app.

“Emergency services were dispatched to the scene,” Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

Russia last conducted a major missile strike on Kyiv on Aug. 26, when officials said it fired a salvo of more than 200 drones and missiles across the country in an attack that attack killed seven people.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Tom Balmforth Valentyn Ogirenko in Kyiv; Writing by Lidia Kelly and Tom Balmforth; Editing by William Mallard)