SKNYLIV: Russia launched a wave of missiles and drones at Ukrainian energy facilities at dawn on Wednesday, intensifying a months-long bombing campaign at a precarious moment of the war for Ukraine, according to a spokesperson in Kyiv.
The Russian barrage came just one day after Kyiv said it had carried out its largest aerial attack of the war on Russian army factories and energy hubs hundreds of kilometres from the front line.
The Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched 43 cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as 74 attack drones, in the barrage that targeted sites mainly in western Ukraine.
Oleksandra Komuna, an elderly resident of the western Ukrainian village of Sknyliv, was at home during the attack when lamps and plaster began falling.
“All the doors and windows were blown out, everything was blown out. The car was damaged, and the roof was damaged. There were cracks everywhere. It’s such a disaster,” she said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky was quick to condemn the strikes and called for more robust security assistance from allies abroad.
“Another massive Russian attack. It is the middle of winter, and the target for the Russians remains the same: our energy sector,” he wrote on social media.
The Russian defence ministry confirmed in a daily briefing that its forces had carried out “high precision” strikes on energy facilities that “support the Ukrainian military-industrial complex”.
It also repeated the claim that all the designated targets had been struck. The Ukrainian air force said however that it had shot down 30 of the missiles and 47 drones, while Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said the Russian attack had “failed”.
Poland scrambles jets
Hours after the barrage, Zelensky met Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw, where the two held a press conference.
“The targets were very close to our Ukrainian border with Poland,” Zelensky said of the overnight strikes, urging closer cooperation.
Tusk said Poland would help “speed up” Ukraine’s accession to the European Union, while Zelensky said membership could help avert future Russian aggression. Poland had earlier scrambled fighter jets to secure its airspace, it announced on social media, adding that there had been no violations of its airspace over its three-hour mission.
The governor of Ukraine’s western Ivano-Frankivsk region said that critical infrastructure facilities had been targeted in the attack, without elaborating.
In the Lviv region, which borders EU and Nato member Poland, authorities said two critical infrastructure facilities had been hit in the Drogobych and Stryi districts.
“There were no casualties, but there was damage,” governor Maksym Kozytsky wrote on social media.
National grid operator Ukrenergo urged Ukrainians to limit their electricity use throughout the day after lifting emergency blackouts in seven regions.
The mayor of the southern city of Kherson said “part of our community is without electricity” as a result of the overnight barrage.
Kyiv had earlier issued air raid alerts across Ukraine and journalists heard sirens ringing out over the capital early on Wednesday.
Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2025
