Russia targets Ukraine's power grid in 'massive' missile strike, officials say

KYIV, Ukraine — 

Blasts rang retired crossed Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, and different cities aboriginal connected Sunday, arsenic Russia staged its biggest rocket onslaught since August and targeted powerfulness facilities with the wintertime mounting in, officials said.

Ukrainians person been bracing for a large onslaught connected the hobbled powerfulness strategy for weeks, fearing crippling harm to the grid that would origin agelong blackouts and physique intelligence unit astatine a captious infinitesimal successful the warfare Russia launched successful February 2022.

"Another monolithic onslaught connected the powerfulness strategy is nether way. The force is attacking energy procreation and transmission facilities passim Ukraine," Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko wrote connected Facebook.

Air defenses could beryllium heard engaging drones implicit the superior successful the night, and a bid of almighty blasts rang retired crossed the metropolis halfway arsenic the rocket onslaught was nether mode successful the morning.

The standard of the harm was not instantly clear. Officials chopped powerfulness proviso to galore metropolis districts, including successful Kyiv, the surrounding portion and Dnipropetrovsk region, successful what they said was a precaution to forestall a surge successful lawsuit of damage.

Authorities successful the Volyn portion successful northwestern Ukraine said vigor infrastructure had sustained harm but did not elaborate. Officials often withhold accusation connected the authorities of the powerfulness strategy due to the fact that of the war.

In Mykolaiv successful the south, 2 radical were killed successful the overnight drone attack, the determination politician said. Blasts shook the southeastern metropolis of Zaporizhzhia and the Black Sea larboard of Odesa, Reuters witnesses said. More blasts were reported successful the regions of Kryvyi Rih successful the southbound and Rivne successful the west.

"Russia launched 1 of the largest aerial attacks: drones and missiles against peaceful cities, sleeping civilians, captious infrastructure," said Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.

He described the onslaught arsenic Moscow's "true response" to leaders who had interacted with President Vladimir Putin, an evident swipe astatine German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who placed a telephone telephone to the Russian person connected Friday for the archetypal clip since precocious 2022.

NATO subordinate Poland, which borders Ukraine to the west, said it had scrambled its aerial unit wrong its airspace arsenic a information precaution owed to the Russian attack, which it said utilized cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and drones.

Poland "activated each disposable forces and resources astatine his disposal, the on-duty combatant pairs were scrambled, and the ground-based aerial defence and radar reconnaissance systems reached the highest authorities of readiness," the operational bid of its equipped forces posted connected X.

Ukraine's aerial unit urged residents to instrumentality cover, providing regular updates connected the advancement of Russian cruise, ballistic and hypersonic missiles it said were hurtling done Ukrainian aerial space.

In Kyiv, the extortion of a residential gathering caught occurrence owed to falling debris and astatine slightest 2 radical were hurt, metropolis officials said connected the Telegram messaging app.

"Emergency services were dispatched to the scene," Kyiv's Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

Russia past conducted a large rocket onslaught connected Kyiv connected August 26, erstwhile officials said it fired a salvo of much than 200 drones and missiles crossed the state successful an onslaught that onslaught killed 7 people.