Ukraine declared emergency blackouts in three districts on Friday, after Russia fired dozens of missiles and drones at its power plants overnight.
Moscow has increased its aircraft bombardment of Ukraine in recent weeks, targeting energy facilities in retaliation to deadly Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s border areas.
Ukrenergo, the national grid operator, stated that its dispatch center was “forced to apply emergency blackout schedules in the regions of Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kirovograd until the evening”.
Following last week’s Russian strike, restrictions were already in place in the key towns of Kharkiv and Kryvyi Rih.
“Consumers in other regions are asked to use electricity sparingly and consciously,” Ukrenergo said in a statement.
The raids come at a terrible time for Ukraine, which is experiencing catastrophic shortages of air defenses and ammunition to defend its front lines.
According to Ukraine’s foreign ministry, the air attacks are “becoming more frequent and massive, posing an increasing threat to Ukraine’s energy security”.
“Ukraine needs more air defence systems to secure critical infrastructure and protect the population,” Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said in a repeated appeal to Kyiv’s Western partners.
The Russian defense ministry admitted to using “long-range air, sea, and land-based precision weapons” to target energy infrastructure, but claimed that Ukraine’s “armed forces” were using the latter.
Both sides accused the other of targeting civilian locations deep behind enemy lines on Friday.
A Russian drone killed a 39-year-old man and wounded another near Ukraine’s southeastern city of Nikopol, while an air attack on Kamianske further north injured five others, including a child, according to Ukrainian police.
Another 50-year-old farmer was discovered dead in the southern district of Kherson, according to the Ukrainian governor, when the tractor he was driving collided with a mine.
In Russia, a Ukrainian drone crashed into an apartment building in the border city of Belgorod, killing a man and wounding two others, the region’s governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
‘Use electricity sparingly’
Russia has battered Ukrainian energy infrastructure throughout the war, now in its third year.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has called the attacks “energy terrorism” and the United Nations has described them as illegal.
The air force said Moscow had targeted Ukraine’s “fuel and energy sector” with 99 missiles and drones overnight, 84 of which were shot down.
“Russian missiles hit thermal and hydroelectric power plants,” Ukrenergo said.
One of the country’s main energy providers, DTEK, said three thermal power stations had been attacked in the barrage, leaving facilities “severely damaged”.
“After the attack, the power engineers promptly started to deal with the consequences,” the company said in a statement online, adding that one employee had been wounded.
The energy ministry said the attack damaged power infrastructure in four regions across central and western Ukraine, causing power cuts and disrupting train traffic.
On the front lines, Ukraine has been forced onto a defensive footing in the past few months, struggling with ammunition shortages amid delays to a $60-billion aid package from the United States.
Its armed forces commander, Oleksandr Syrsky, said on Friday the situation in some areas of the battlefield was “tense”.
“The Russian occupiers continue to increase their efforts and have a numerical advantage in personnel,” he said.
“In addition, the enemy is conducting heavy artillery and mortar fire,” he added.
“Just a few days ago, the enemy’s advantage in terms of ammunition fired was about six to one.”