Some 1.2 million people have been left without power in at least four regions across Ukraine after Russia unleashed “revenge strikes” overnight on Friday, officials have claimed, as at least five people have been reported killed and dozens more wounded.
“Russia launched the largest combined attack on the Ukrainian energy system since the beginning of the full-scale invasion,” grid operator UkrEnergo cited their head, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, as saying.
Russia fired 88 missiles and 63 Shahed drones in a vast overnight attack, while missile strikes earlier in the day targeted the power supply in Kharkiv, with at least 15 blasts reported for the northeastern city.
The Kremlin Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the assault was part of a series of “revenge attacks” to punish Kyiv for raiding Russian border regions and firing drones at oil refineries across western Russia. At least nine refineries have been attacked so far this year.
Andriy Kramarov, a former officer of a Ukrainian anti-missile unit, dismissed the Russian MoD comments, suggesting comparing the two attacks was nonsense.
“They don’t even have any people that struggle from these attacks. We have a lot of civilians killed,” he said. “They are not the same.”