Russia launches major drone attack on Ukraine, damages energy infrastructure

reuters_tickers

KYIV (Reuters) -Russian forces launched a major drone attack overnight on 15 Ukrainian regions, causing damage to energy infrastructure and residential buildings, authorities said on Thursday.

The Ukrainian air force said it had shot down 78 out of 105 Russian drones during the assault, with 23 more likely impacted by active electronic jamming.

The drones damaged power lines and substations’ equipment in the Kyiv, Odesa and Ivano-Frankivsk regions in the past 24 hours, Ukraine’s energy ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.

The attacks caused temporary disruption of railway services in the southern Odesa region as well as power cuts for households, it said.

Odesa regional governor Oleh Kiper said power had been restored to more than 3,000 consumers in his region following the overnight attack, though a further 2,000 people remained without power.

Authorities said they had downed around 15 drones over Kyiv and its surroundings during an air alert that lasted over five hours. The central Ukrainian regions of Poltava, Cherkasy and Kirovohrad all reported minor damage to property.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had hit Ukrainian energy facilities that were providing power to Ukraine’s armed forces’ operations, Russian state news agency TASS reported.

Moscow denies targeting civilians but has regularly struck towns and cities behind the front lines. A Russian guided bomb struck an apartment block in the eastern city of Kharkiv on Wednesday, starting fires and injuring at least 10 people.

More than 2-1/2 years into its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has been pummelling the country’s energy infrastructure with drone and missile attacks while its forces continue to make steady progress on the eastern front.

The strikes, which have intensified with the approach of winter, have prompted Kyiv to repeatedly call on its allies to lift restrictions on its use of Western long-range weapons to strike deep into Russia to curb its ability to launch attacks.

The Ukrainian military said on Thursday it had used ATACMS ballistic missiles provided by the U.S. to strike a Russian radar station to reduce Moscow’s ability to “detect, track and intercept” ballistic targets. It did not say when the strike took place or give the venue of the ‘Nebo-M’ radar station.

(Reporting by Ron Popeski, Oleksander Kozhukhar and Anastasiia Malenko in KyivEditing by Gareth Jones)