Ukraine on Saturday said Russia had launched a “massive” overnight attack on energy infrastructure in the west and south, adding that at least seven persons died in strikes elsewhere.

Russia launched 16 cruise missiles from land, sea and air as well as 13 attack drones, aiming at energy infrastructure in several regions, Ukraine’s military said.

Air defences downed all but four of them, it added.

The Energy Ministry said this was “the eighth massive, combined attack on energy infrastructure facilities” in the past three months, targeting the southern Zaporizhzhia region and Lviv in the west.

“Equipment at (operator) Ukrenergo facilities in the Zaporizhzhia and Lviv regions was damaged,” the Ministry said.

Ukrenergo said that two employees were wounded and hospitalised in Zaporizhzhia, where Europe’s biggest nuclear plant is located.

More than two years into the Russian invasion, targeted missile and drone attacks have crippled Ukraine’s electricity generation capacity and forced Kyiv to impose blackouts and import supplies from the European Union.

Ukrenergo said outages across the country would start earlier than usual on Saturday, running from 1100 GMT to 2100 GMT due to damage from the attacks.

In Zaporizhzhia, shelling over the last day also killed one civilian and destroyed residential buildings and infrastructure, according to the regional military administration.

Russia controls a part of the region and the nuclear plant. The Russian-appointed administration said Ukrainian attacks had damaged a substation linked to the city’s nuclear power plant but did not affect nuclear safety.

Maksym Kozytskyi, the governor of the western Lviv region, said Russia “launched a missile attack on a critical energy infrastructure facility”, sparking a fire that was later extinguished.

Ukrainian troops based in the west shot down seven out of 10 cruise missiles fired by Moscow, the Lviv regional governor said.

Five civilians were killed by Russian shelling in frontline areas of the eastern Donetsk region over the last day, the head of the region, Vadym Filashkin said.

Moscow is trying to advance in the area near the town of Pokrovsk, where intense clashes took place on Saturday, Ukraine’s military said, adding the situation was “under control”.

‘Crisis’ warning

In the southern Kherson region, a policeman manning a checkpoint was killed by a drone, the national police force said.

Russia’s defence ministry said it had hit 340 Ukrainian targets over the past day.

Russian attacks have destroyed half of Ukraine’s energy capacity, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Zelensky said this week that all hospitals and schools in Ukraine must be equipped with solar panels “as soon as possible”.

“We are doing everything to ensure that Russian attempts to blackmail us on heat and electricity fail,” he said Thursday.

DTEK, the largest private energy company in Ukraine, said Thursday that strikes caused “serious damage” at one of its plants.

DTEK chief executive Maxim Timchenko warned that Ukraine “faces a serious crisis this winter” if the country’s Western allies do not provide military aid to defend the energy network.

Zelensky has repeatedly urged Ukraine’s allies to send more air-defence systems to protect the country’s vital infrastructure.

Police carry an elderly man to a bus to evacuate him from the village of Bugayivka close to Vovchansk, the site of heavy battles with the Russian troops in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, on May 11, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Thousands of people been evacuated from border areas in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, as Russia kept up constant strikes on a key town as part of a cross-border offensive, officials said Sunday.

The surprise Russian attack across Ukraine’s northeastern border began on Friday, with troops making small advances in an area from where they had been pushed back nearly two years ago.

“In total, 4,073 people have been evacuated,” Kharkiv regional governor Oleg Synegubov wrote on social media, a day after Russian forces claimed the capture of five villages in the region.

Ukraine has reported several civilians killed in the offensive. Synegubov said the latest casualty – a 63-year-old man – was killed by artillery fire in the village of Glyboke.

On Sunday AFP saw groups of people who had been evacuated from around the border town of Vovchansk, most of them elderly and disoriented.

“We weren’t going to leave. Home is home,” said 72-year-old Lyuda Zelenskaya, hugging a trembling cat named Zhora.

Liuba Konovalova, 70 said she had endured a “really terrifying” night before her evacuation.

The pair, who lived together after their children married each other and moved away, were at a first point for evacuees in the Kharkiv region.

Around them, volunteers assisted elderly evacuees towards a few wooden benches where they registered and received food before being evacuated toward the city of Kharkiv, the regional capital.

‘Everything… is being destroyed’

Oleksiy Kharkivsky, a senior police officer from Vovchansk helping to coordinate evacuations, said “several people” had been killed by shelling on Saturday and one person was found dead in rubble overnight.

“The city is constantly under fire,” he said.

“Everything in the city is being destroyed… You hear constant explosions, artillery, mortars. The enemy is hitting the city with everything they have,” he said.

The Ukrainian army said it was holding back any further Russian advances.

“Russian occupants’ attempts to break through our defense have been stopped,” said Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky.

But he said the situation in Kharkiv region had “deteriorated significantly” and was “complicated”.

Ukrainian forces “are doing everything they can to hold their defensive lines and positions and inflict damage on the enemy,” he said.

Evacuation teams under fire

Kharkivsky estimated that around 1,500 people had been evacuated or fled Vovchansk since Friday and there had been 32 drone strikes on the town over the past 24 hours.

He said evacuation teams had come under fire “many times”.

On Saturday, AFP saw groups of people fleeing the border area arriving in vans and cars loaded with bags at a reception centre for evacuees near Kharkiv.

Evacuees – most of them elderly – received food and medical assistance and could sleep in bunk beds.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that Ukrainian troops had been carrying out counterattacks in the border villages.

“Disrupting Russian offensive plans is now our number one task,” he said.

Troops must “return the initiative to Ukraine”, the president insisted, again urging allies to speed up arms deliveries.

Ukrainian officials had warned for weeks that Moscow might try to attack its northeastern border regions, pressing its advantage as Ukraine struggles with delays in Western aid and manpower shortages.