Russia attacked electrical power facilities in much of Ukraine, including the country’s largest hydroelectric plant, causing widespread outages and killing at least three people, officials said on Friday, according to AP News.
Energy Minister German Galushchenko said the nighttime drone and rocket attacks were “the largest attack on the Ukrainian energy sector in recent times. The goal is not just to damage, but to try again, like last year, to cause a large-scale disruption of the country’s energy system.”
The attacks caused a fire at the Dnipro Hydroelectric Station, which supplies electricity to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power installation.
The main 750-kilovolt power line to the plant was cut off, International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi said early Friday. A lower-power backup line was working, he added.
The Russian-controlled management of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, said on Friday that a high-voltage line supplying it with electricity has been repaired after an outage earlier in the day, according to Reuters.
The plant is occupied by Russian troops, and fighting around the plant has been a constant concern because of the potential for a nuclear accident.
The dam at the hydroelectric station was not in danger of breaching, the country’s hydroelectric authority said. A dam breach could not only disrupt supplies to the nuclear plant but would potentially cause severe flooding similar to what occurred last year when a major dam at Kakhovka further down the Dnieper collapsed.
Russia fired 88 missiles and 63 Shahed drones, of which only 37 and 55 were shot down respectively, the Ukrainian air force said, a worse ratio than usual that may reflect the widespread use of hypersonic and ballistic missiles that are harder to down, according to Euractiv.
One person was killed and at least eight injured in the Russian attack, said Zaporizhzhia regional governor Ivan Fedorov.
Attacks on energy facilities in the Kharkiv region caused blackouts, and other attacks were reported in areas of western Ukraine far from the front lines. Two people died in the Khmelnytskyi region, according to the Internal Affairs Ministry.
The plant, controlled by Russia, is in shut-down mode and receives electric power via two high-voltage lines, the more powerful of which went down on Friday morning as Russian drones and missiles struck Ukrainian energy infrastructure, Reuters reports.
“The world sees the targets of Russian terrorists as clearly as possible: power plants and energy supply lines, a hydroelectric dam, ordinary residential buildings, even a trolleybus. Russia is fighting against the ordinary life of people,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday on the Telegram messaging app.
“Russia is at war against people’s ordinary lives. My condolences to the families and loved ones of those killed in this terror,” he wrote.
The latest attack prompted Zelensky to renew his call for more military aid and additional air defence systems from Western allies, BBC News reports.
He said that the shortfall in ammunition facing his troops was “humiliating” for Europe, adding: “Europe can provide more, and it is crucial to prove it now.”
Russian officials said Friday that one person died and at least three were injured in Ukrainian shelling of areas near the border.
The governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said a woman was killed when a shell hit nearby while she was walking her dogs and that two others were injured. The town of Tetkino in the Kursk region was shelled, injuring one person, said Gov. Roman Starovoit, according to AP News
Both regions have been subject to shelling and drone attacks in recent weeks and officials have said that attempts by Ukrainian fighters to cross into Russian territory have been repelled.