By Tom Balmforth and Pavel Polityuk
kyiv (Reuters) – Explosions erupted in the Ukrainian capital kyiv and other cities on Sunday morning, as Russia launched its biggest missile attack since August and targeted power facilities as winter approaches , officials announced.
Ukrainians have been preparing for weeks for a major attack on their broken power system, fearing crippling damage to the grid that would cause long blackouts and increase psychological pressure at a critical moment in the war Russia launched in February 2022.
“Another massive attack on the power system is underway. The enemy is attacking electricity production and transmission facilities throughout Ukraine,” Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko wrote on Facebook.
Air defenses could be heard engaging drones over the capital overnight, and a series of powerful explosions rang out across the city center as the missile attack was underway in the morning.
The extent of the damage was not immediately clear. Authorities cut power to many parts of the city, including kyiv, the surrounding region and the Dnipropetrovsk region, as a precaution they said to avoid a power surge in the event of damage.
Authorities in the Volyn region in northwestern Ukraine said energy infrastructure had suffered damage, but did not give details. Authorities often hide information about the state of the electricity system because of the war.
In Mykolaiv, in the south, two people were killed in a nighttime drone attack, the regional governor said. Explosions rocked the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia and the Black Sea port of Odessa, Reuters witnesses said. Other explosions were reported in the areas of Kryvyi Rih in the south and Rivne in the west.
“Russia launched one of the most significant air attacks: drones and missiles against peaceful cities, sleeping civilians and critical infrastructure,” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said.
He described the strike as Moscow’s “real response” to leaders who had interacted with President Vladimir Putin, an apparent blow to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who called the Russian leader on Friday for the first time since late 2022.
NATO member Poland, which borders Ukraine to the west, said it had deployed its air forces into its airspace as a security measure due to the Russian attack, which it said used cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and drones.
Poland “activated all available forces and resources, the pairs of fighters in service were mobilized and the air defense and ground radar reconnaissance systems reached the highest state of readiness”, published the operational command of its armed forces on
The Ukrainian Air Force urged residents to take shelter, providing regular updates on the progress of Russian cruise, ballistic and hypersonic missiles that it said were crossing Ukrainian airspace .
In kyiv, the roof of a residential building caught fire from falling debris and at least two people were injured, city officials said on the messaging app Telegram.
“Emergency services were dispatched to the scene,” kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Russia last carried out a major missile strike on kyiv on Aug. 26, when officials said it fired a salvo of more than 200 drones and missiles across the country in an attack that killed seven people.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Tom Balmforth Valentyn Ogirenko in kyiv; writing by Lidia Kelly and Tom Balmforth; editing by William Mallard)
