Russia launched a “massive” attack on Saturday morning Ukrainian energy facilitiescausing “serious damage” to four thermal power plants in the former Soviet republic, which in turn attacked two Russian oil refineries with drones.
He Russian army has intensified its attacks against ukrainian power grid in recent months, which has caused blackouts and forced the authorities of Ukraine to ask residents to limit their energy consumption.
“Today there was a new massive missile attack” against “infrastructures of the energy sector, electricity and facilities for routing gas,” declared Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
After the aggression, the leader again urged his Western allies to accelerate the delivery of anti-aircraft systems. “Ukraine you need seven systems [Patriot] and it is the minimum. “The partners have those Patriots,” he insisted. According to the Ukrainian Minister of Energy, German Galushchenko, the attack caused “damage” to facilities in the regions of Dnipropetrovsk, Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv, in the central east and west of the country.
The Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions are located near the border with the European Union and hundreds of kilometers from the front line.
According to the forces ukrainian airRussia fired 34 missiles, 21 of which were shot down.
“We managed to knock some down. But the world has every possibility to help shoot down all Russian missiles and drones,” Zelensky stressed.
Four thermal power plants damaged
He ukrainian electrical operator DTEK, a private company, stated that four of its thermal plants suffered “serious damage” after the bombings.
The public operator Ukrenergo, for its part, disconnected its main power line in the west of the country as a precautionary measure, and again asked all users to limit their electricity consumption.
The head of the western region of Lviv, Maksim Kozitski, asked residents not to use high-energy devices between 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. to preserve the electricity supply.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk indicated on the X network that one of the missiles fired by Russia in the night it fell on Ukraine“15 km” from the Polish border.
Other Russian bombings killed two people and wounded 15. One person was killed and five wounded in the Kharkiv region in the northeast.
Another was killed and eight wounded in a bombing in the southern region of Kherson, local authorities said.
Two people were also injured in Krivoy Rog, in the center-west of the country, invaded by Moscow in February 2022.
Refinery on fire
Ukrainein turn, launched a drone attack against the southern Russian region of Krasnodar. Kyiv bombed “key technological facilities” in two refineries in the region, a Ukrainian defense source told AFP.
Russian authorities reported a fire at a refinery in Slavyansk and state media stated that the plant had to stop production.
The Russian Defense Ministry stated that its anti-aircraft defenses “destroyed 66 Ukrainian drones over the territory of the Krasnodar region, and another two drones were destroyed over the Crimean peninsula,” annexed by Moscow in 2014.
In the Russian region of Belgorod, bordering Ukraine and a regular target of attacks, five people were injured when a Ukrainian drone fell on a road in a town located a few kilometers from UkraineGovernor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced.
In recent months, Ukraine has repeatedly attacked oil refineries and depots in Russia. According to Moscow, the Russian bombings against the Ukrainian power grid are retaliation for these attacks.
Ukraine says Moscow is stepping up its air and ground strikes ahead of national celebrations on May 9, when Russia commemorates the victory in the Second World Warand when Ukraine awaits the arrival of American weapons.
Russia also intensified bombing of the Ukrainian railway network to “paralyze” the shipment of Western equipment, he told the AFP a senior official in the security services Ukraine.
Source: Gestion
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