Russia’s military has launched a wave of attacks on Ukraine’s gas and energy infrastructure, the Defense Ministry in Moscow announced.
In a statement on Saturday, the ministry said the group attack was carried out at night and targeted facilities that support Ukraine’s military-industrial complex. “The goal of the attack was achieved. All designated targets were hit” it said, without naming the affected facilities or the forces involved.
Ukrainian representatives confirmed the attacks in several regions and reported power outages, with damage to the energy infrastructure in the Poltava and the Ukrainian-controlled part of the Zaporizhzhia region.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelensky also stated that there were damages in the regions of Odessa, Sumy, Kharkiv, Khmelnitsky and Kyiv and that the attack involved rockets, combat drones and aerial bombs. In Poltava, three people were killed, two in Sumy and one in Kharkiv, with many injured.
Russia has been conducting attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, which supports the country’s military industry, as well as other facilities connected to the military, for months, emphasizing that these attacks never target civilians. Moscow has further explained that the attacks are a retaliation for Kiev’s attacks on Russian residential buildings across the country and its oil processing plants.