New “major attack” against the Ukrainian energy system – DW – 11/28/2024

Ukraine reported this Thursday (11/28/2024) a “large-scale attack” against its energy infrastructure, causing power outages in many places such as Kiev, Odessa and Dnipro. With temperatures around zero degrees, “the energy sector is once again under massive enemy attack,” Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko announced on Facebook. “At the moment, 523,000 customers are without electricity in the Lviv region,” Governor Maksim Kozitsky said on social media. Authorities in neighboring Rivne and Wallonia regions to the west also reported 280,000 and 215,000 customers without power, respectively.

Energy operator DTEK reported that these actions forced emergency blackouts in places such as the capital Kiev or the cities of Odessa and Dnipro. Some time ago, the Ukrainian Army Air Force activated a national alert after detecting the approach of missiles towards other regions, including Odessa (south), Kharkiv (northeast) or Kherson (east). Ukrainian media claims that Russia has also used drones in the attack.

Igor Terekhov, mayor of the northeastern city of Kharkiv, said on his social networks that the city was attacked by several missiles early Thursday. Regional officials said there were also explosions in the Volhynia region of northwestern Ukraine. Ukrainian anti-aircraft alert has also been activated in the capital Kiev and Russian forces have reached infrastructure located in the northeastern region of Sumy.

Since last March, Russia has launched large-scale joint attacks against the Ukrainian electricity system on a dozen occasions. The last of these attacks occurred on 17 November and forced Ukraine to resume scheduled power cuts to conserve energy due to production losses. Kiev has repeatedly warned about Russian intentions to leave Ukrainians without electricity during the coldest period of the year in order to demoralize the population and weaken the country’s economy.

On the other hand, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed to have destroyed 25 Ukrainian drones overnight in the border areas of Bryansk and Rostov and the annexed Crimean peninsula. According to military reports, 14 unmanned aircraft were destroyed in the area of ​​the southern Krasnodar Territory. Other drones were shot down in the Bryansk (6) and Rostov (2) regions bordering Ukraine and Crimea (3).

LGC (AFP, EFE)