KYIV — Russia launched a major missile attack across Ukraine early Monday morning, hammering locations in the country’s east and west, killing at least three and putting massive strains on Ukraine’s energy grid, officials said.
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Russia hits targets across Ukraine, including Kyiv, causing power outages
Ukraine celebrated independence from Russia on Saturday, and some form of Russian attack around the date had been widely expected, including in warnings from the U.S. Embassy.
“The enemy is once again terrorizing all of Ukraine with missiles — energy infrastructure is under attack,” Ukraine’s energy minister, Herman Halushchenko, wrote on Facebook. “The enemy is not abandoning plans to deprive Ukrainians of electricity.”
“The situation is difficult, and the consequences of the attacks are being clarified,” he wrote.
The sound of explosions in Kyiv came shortly after 8 a.m. and again an hour later. The city’s military administration said in social media posts that air defenses were operating in the capital and surrounding region. Local media also reported the sound of explosions in numerous regions across the country.
“Throughout the night and morning, the enemy attacked the area with missiles and attack drones,” Ruslan Kravchenko, head of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration, posted on Telegram. “There is damage to infrastructure facilities.”
In a Telegram post, DTEK, the country’s largest private energy company, said state electricity distributor Ukrenergo was implementing emergency power outages but did not provide details on which regions or for how long.
Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said power had been cut off “in several districts of the capital,” caused by electricity shortages throughout the grid. Water supply was also cut off in some areas.
At least three people died in the attacks, local authorities said. One person was killed in the western city of Lutsk, Mayor Ihor Polishchuk said on Telegram, and an apartment building was damaged. The attacks also killed one person each in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, the heads of the local administrations said.
In Lviv, in western Ukraine, water supplies could be interrupted because of electricity shortages, Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said.
State railway company Ukrzaliznytsia said on social media that “several” power outages had hit “various regions” but did not provide further details. Local commuter trains, which run on electricity, were being delayed, but long-distance routes were unaffected, the company said.
Serhiy Morgunov contributed to this report.