A wave of Russian missiles slammed into hydroelectric plants and other critical energy and water infrastructure across Ukraine on Monday, with explosions reported near the capital, Kyiv, and in at least 10 other regions.
Hydro plants, substations and heat generation facilities were all hit, Ukraine said, while the ministry of defence in Moscow said it had targeted “energy systems” in a devastating morning raid carried out using long-range cruise missiles.
Ukraine’s air command said it shot down 44 out of 50 enemy rockets, but power and water supplies were affected in an escalation of Moscow’s attacks on vital utilities as the winter looms. At least 13 people were injured, police said, and air raid sirens went off nationally.
Kyiv was also hit for the third Monday out of the past four, following months of relative calm. Video footage showed several missiles being intercepted soon after 8am local time. The governor of Kyiv, Oleksiy Kuleba, said “massive shelling in the region” had damaged electricity and energy infrastructure. He said residents should expect emergency power cuts. About 80 per cent of houses in Kyiv were left without water, according to water supply company Kyivvodokanal.
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Russian Tu-90 and T-60 strategic aircraft flying north of the Caspian Sea and the Rostov region fired the rockets, and Moscow state media showed video footage of a ship launching Kalibr missiles. They were targeted at Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv oblasts, as well as in the areas of Mykolaiv, Lviv, Zhytomyr, Kirovohrad and Chernivtsi.
In a statement on Facebook, Herman Halushchenko, Ukraine’s energy minister, described Monday morning’s attacks as “barbaric” and said: “Electric substations, hydropower and heat generation facilities were hit by rockets.
“I ask all Ukrainians in [areas] that were not affected by shelling to reduce their electricity consumption as much as possible. Reducing the load on the power grid will help our energy companies to quickly restore the power supply in those regions that are temporarily blacked-out.”
The targeting of substations and hydro plants marks an escalation by Russia in the conflict. Russian president Vladimir Putin’s calculation is that a weary civilian population will grow fed up with living in cold and miserable conditions and will press Ukraine’s government to make concessions. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has ruled this out, saying he would rather live “without you” — meaning Russia — than with light and water.
The electricity trade media publication Elektrovesti reported that three major hydroelectric power stations were hit. They included the Dnprovskyi facility in Zaprorizhzhia city and the plant at Kremenchuk, both on the Dnieper river. Video footage showed black smoke rising from or near a substation in Kremenchuk in the Poltava region of central Ukraine.
A third strike damaged the Dniester dam and plant in the west of the country, 10km from the border with Moldova. Debris from a Russian rocket landed inside the Moldovan town of Naslavcea after Ukrainian air defences shot it down. The windows of four houses were damaged. Moldova’s government said its airspace was not violated.
Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Mr Zelenskiy, said Ukraine still urgently needed better and more “modern” air defences, to secure its civilian infrastructure from Kremlin aggression. Kyiv recently took delivery from Germany of an Iris-T air defence system. The United States has promised to send eight advanced surface-to-air missile complexes, known as Nasams.
Presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said Moscow had conducted “another massive cascade missile attack” on Ukraine’s critical power centres. He suggested that the world was watching the “entire country” freeze, rather than providing air defences so that rockets could be shot down.
In recent weeks Russia has stepped up its attacks on fossil fuel power stations and the substations that connect Ukraine’s energy grid together. Some Ukrainian officials had hoped that the country’s hydro plants might be spared because of the wider consequences.
The damage might have been significantly worse. Missiles were successfully shot down over the Vinnytsia and Khmelnytsky regions, according to local officials. Footage posted by Euromaidan Press shows a cruise missile being intercepted close to Kyiv and exploding in mid-air.
In Kyiv, the mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said critical infrastructure was struck. About 350,000 people were left without power, he said. “As a result of strikes on critical infrastructure facilities, part of the capital was cut off. There is no water supply in some areas. All services are working,” he said.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said Russia was “fighting civilians” because it was incapable of winning on the battlefield. He said it was wrong to describe the Kremlin’s latest strikes as a “response”, adding: “Russia does this because it still has the missiles and the will to kill Ukrainians.”
By Monday afternoon life in Kyiv had mostly returned to normal, despite warnings from officials that more strikes could come. The capital’s streets and underground were busy, with people queuing for coffee. Children played in Shevchenko park, which was hit three weeks ago by a cruise missile. Only a few people were queuing for water at the park’s Tsarist-era water pumps.
On Saturday, Russia’s Black Sea flagship vessel, the Admiral Makarov, was damaged and possibly disabled during a Ukrainian air and sea drone raid on the Crimean port of Sevastopol. At least three Russian vessels were hit. The Kremlin blamed the British Royal Navy for co-ordinating the operation, a claim the UK government denies.
Meanwhile, Russia’s halting of its participation in the United Nations-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative is having “immediate, harmful impacts” on global food security and food prices have risen on uncertainty around the deal, US state department spokesman Ned Price said on Monday.
Elsewhere, the UN atomic watchdog has started its inspections of two nuclear sites in Ukraine being carried out at Kyiv’s request to address Russian accusations that it is working on a so-called “dirty bomb”, the watchdog’s chief Rafael Grossi said on Monday. — Guardian/Reuters