Russia hits Ukraine energy grid with massive attack of drones, missiles

Russia unleashed a huge assault against energy infrastructure across Ukraine overnight using scores of drones and missiles, in an apparent effort to destabilize the country ahead of winter.

“A massive combined attack targeted all regions of Ukraine,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on social media X. “In total, approximately 120 missiles and 90 drones were launched. Our air defense forces destroyed over 140 aerial targets,” he said.

It was one of the biggest aerial assaults against Ukraine since August and prompted emergency power cuts in numerous regions. At least seven people were killed, Reuters reported.

The Ukrainian president said Moscow used various types of drones, “as well as cruise, ballistic and aeroballistic missiles,” in the strikes.

In the southern city of Mykolaiv, “a drone attack killed two people and injured six others, including two children,” Zelenskyy said. Another woman was killed in the Lviv region, the BBC reported.

Poland — a NATO member — said it scrambled its air force as the Russian attack was going after targets in western Ukraine. “The ground-based air defense and radar reconnaissance systems reached the highest state of readiness,” the Polish armed forces operational command wrote on X.

Moscow’s attack came after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, urging him to put an end to the war that has been going on for more than two years. But Zelenskyy complained that the conversation undermined efforts to isolate the Russian leader.

“This is war criminal Putin’s true response to all those who called and visited him recently,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said of the attack. “We need peace through strength, not appeasement.”

Zelenskyy also said on Saturday that Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the war with Russia ends next year using diplomatic means.