By Cassandra Vinograd
Ukraine reported that Russian forces conducted a “massive” missile assault on the nation’s infrastructure on Wednesday, prompting officials to implement emergency power cuts to alleviate the strain on the country’s weakened grid.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that air defenses intercepted at least 30 of over 40 missiles launched by Russia in an attack aimed at gas and energy facilities.
“Another significant Russian bombardment. It’s winter, and the Russians remain focused on one target: our energy infrastructure,” he declared in a social media message from the capital, where temperatures hovered just above freezing.
The barrage involved air, land, and sea-based missiles — including at least one ballistic missile — along with numerous attack drones, as noted by Ukraine’s air force. They reported that energy facilities in the Kharkiv, Lviv, and Ivano-Frankivsk areas faced damage, but stressed that not every missile that bypassed air defenses hit its intended target.
Russia’s Defense Ministry acknowledged the use of “precision weapons and strike drones” against essential gas and energy infrastructure, claiming in a statement that “all targeted facilities have been struck.”
The Russian military has persistently targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure during campaigns aimed at debilitating the country in winter. Experts indicate that assaults on power plants and substations have pushed the nation’s energy network to the brink of collapse.
On Wednesday, air-raid sirens sounded around 5:45 a.m. in Kyiv, prompting a nationwide alert for missile threats. Poland’s military actively dispatched fighter jets as a precaution.
As Ukrainians sought shelter for a third hour and the air force alerted of incoming cruise missiles, Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko announced emergency measures.
“In light of the extensive attack, the transmission system operator is implementing preventive restriction measures,” Galushchenko communicated in a statement via Facebook.
Emergency power outages were briefly enforced in six regions across the nation, including Kharkiv in the northeast and Zaporizhzhia in the south, according to Ukrenergo, the national electricity provider.
Two vital infrastructure sites were damaged in the Lviv region of western Ukraine, as reported by Maksym Kozytskyi, the head of the regional military administration. He later noted that two residential houses and two outbuildings had sustained damage. Authorities in the Ivano-Frankivsk region also confirmed attacks on facilities there.
This attack occurred a day after Moscow warned of potential retaliation for what it claimed was Ukraine’s recent use of Western-made long-range missiles to target areas within Russia.
Ukraine’s energy network has suffered so severely from the assaults that officials have been compelled to explore alternatives — such as leasing floating power plants and recovering discarded ones from the area — in an effort to relieve pressure on the grid and avert a crisis.
