Ukraine’s critical energy infrastructure was extensively damaged on Saturday as Russian troops delivered another large-scale wave of missile strikes, leaving 1.5 million or more people temporarily without power.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia had launched a “massive attack” overnight, with some 36 missiles fired, most of them intercepted but some that hit their marks.
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is nearing the eight-month mark, and in the past two weeks has been marked by increased targeting of civilian structures including power and heating facilities, as the Kremlin looks to leave millions of people without electricity heading into winter.
A top aide to Zelenskyy said Russia is trying to provoke a new refugee crisis for Europe by driving Ukrainians from their homes. “Whether Putin will be able to implement his plan depends on European capitals’ leaders,” Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter.
The strikes have increased as Kremlin troops suffer multiple setbacks on the battlefield in the east and southeast.
They also follow the appointment of a new commander of Russia’s forces in Ukraine, Air Force General Sergei Surovikin, named to the post two days before the initial big power-plant strikes.
On Saturday, regions ranging from Volyn in the Ukraine’s west to Zaporizhzhia in the southeast reported strikes on power facilities Saturday.
Air alarms, indicating possible missiles in the vicinity, sounded from the Transcarpathia region in the southwest to Kharkiv, more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) to the northeast, to occupied Kherson.
At least 18 long-range missiles were reportedly shot down. Ukrainian officials, including Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, continue to put out urgent calls to allies for better air defense systems.
Many regions suffered blackouts, and several will also have water supplies cut off temporarily, authorities said. By late afternoon some cities, including Mykolaiv, which has been targeted by Russia for months, had the power back on, its governor said.
Extensive power outages were reported is Khmelnytskyi, about 350 km (217 miles) southwest of Kyiv and even further from the front lines in the Donbas and Kherson regions. More than 670,000 residents were left without power there, or more than half the region’s population, said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the presidential office. Explosions were also reported in the Volyn and Rivne regions, even further west.
Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s national power grid operator, said it was limiting electricity supplies to the capital, Kyiv, and at least 10 additional regions. A presidential aide estimated almost 1.5 million are without power.
Zelenskyy earlier this week said recent attacks had damaged almost one-third of Ukraine’s power stations, and that estimate is sure to rise.
The scale of new damage on Saturday “is comparable or even exceeds” what was seen from the Oct. 10-12 strikes on energy facilities, Ukrenergo said on its Telegram channel. It asked customers to limit electricity consumption to conserve power.
Kremlin forces initially launched widespread strikes on energy facilities and other civilian targets two days after the Kerch Strait Bridge from annexed Crimea to mainland Russia was damaged in an explosion that Moscow blamed on Ukraine.
Although the attacks were seen as retaliation for the bridge bombing, days later, Putin suggested that Russia’s military had missed some of its targets in that round of attacks, and needed to complete the job.
The ongoing air campaign suggests Russia, with its troops now under Surovikin’s command, is “seeking to destroy the will of the Ukrainian people,” said Mick Ryan, a military strategist and retired Australian army general.
Surovikin is believed to have spearheaded Russia’s brutal bombing campaign against civilians in Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city.
“As an air force officer, it is clear he has succumbed to the theory that populations can be shattered by aerial attack,” Ryan said in a Twitter thread.
