Russian drone and missile strikes have wounded at least 20 people in Kyiv, damaged residential buildings and caused blackouts across swaths of Ukraine, authorities have said.
In the latest mass attack targeting the energy system as winter approaches, electricity was interrupted in nine regions, and more than a million households and businesses were temporarily without power across the country on Friday.
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In southeastern Ukraine, a seven-year-old was killed when his home was hit, and at least 20 people were injured. In Kyiv, an apartment block in the city centre was damaged by a projectile, while on the left bank of the Dnipro River that divides the capital, crowds waited at bus stops with the metro out of action, and people filled water bottles at distribution points.
“We didn’t sleep at all,” said Liuba, a pensioner, as she collected water. “From 2:30am, there was so much noise. By 3:30, we had no electricity, no gas, no water. Nothing.”
According to Ukraine’s energy ministry, more than 800,000 customers temporarily lost power in Kyiv.
Moscow’s attack overnight and into Friday fell on the third anniversary of Russia’s first large-scale attack on energy facilities, months after Moscow invaded in February 2022, according to Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called Russia’s latest strikes a “cynical and calculated attack”, and urged allies to respond with concrete measures.
“What’s needed is not window dressing but decisive action – from the United States, Europe, and the G7 – in delivering air defence systems and enforcing sanctions,” he said in a statement on X.
The Kremlin has escalated aerial attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities and rail systems over recent weeks, building on earlier bombing campaigns over the previous three winters that left millions without heating in frigid temperatures. Russia said its forces had hit energy sites supplying power to Ukraine’s defence industry.
The Ukrainian air force said the Russian barrage comprised 465 drones and 32 missiles, adding that 405 drones and 15 missiles were downed.
A source in Ukraine’s energy sector told the AFP news agency that the intensity of attacks was higher compared to last year, and that cloudy weather overnight had allowed drones to evade Ukrainian air defence systems.
Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Russian forces had targeted “critical infrastructure”.
“This was one of the largest concentrated strikes against energy facilities,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said.
It was the fourth attack in a week against the facilities of Ukraine’s biggest private electricity provider, DTEK, its CEO Maxim Timchenko said.
Late on Friday DTEK said it had restored power to at least 678,000 households and companies in Kyiv after the massive Russian aerial attack.
“DTEK power engineers continue to intensively restore electricity to Kyiv residents,” the company said on Telegram.
Children ‘rejoined’ with families
The Russian attack came as United States First Lady Melania Trump announced that eight children displaced by the war had been reunited with their families following negotiations between her team and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s.
Trump said that Putin had responded to a letter sent via her husband, President Donald Trump, at a summit in Alaska in August.
“My representative has been working directly with President Putin’s team to ensure the safe reunification of children with their families between Russia and Ukraine. In fact, eight children have been rejoined with their families during the past 24 hours,” she said in a short, six-minute speech from the White House on Friday.
US President Trump’s own efforts to broker an end to Russia’s three-year war in Ukraine have stalled, as a series of direct talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations this year ended.
Trump said on Thursday that Washington and NATO allies were “stepping up the pressure” to end the war in Ukraine.
Source: Aljazeera
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