Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles in Ukraine overnight, killing at least four people and damaging energy infrastructure in three separate regions.
Ukraine’s president, Voltodmyr Zelenskyy, said Russia had launched more than 450 drones and 45 missiles, most of which were shot down.
Three people were killed and 12 injured when a drone hit an apartment building in Dnipro, and another person was killed in the Kharkiv region. The energy infrastructure of Kyiv, the regions of Poltava and Kharkiv were damaged by the attacks, according to the Ukrainian Prime Minister, Yulia SypyryDenko.
Energy companies are working to restore power, repair supplies, while many cities turn to generators to keep the power going. Kremenchuk and Horishni Plavni in the Central Poltava region, use generators to maintain water supplies, municipal officials said.
Zelenskyy called for more sanctions after the strikes. “For every Moscow attack on the energy infrastructure – aimed at harming ordinary people before the winter – there must be a response to the punishment of all encortante in Russia, without exception,” he said.
Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy sector have increased in recent months, with military facilities being attacked nine times in the past two months, according to the energy watchdog NAFTUNAZ.
On Saturday, Ukrainian drones hit a power outage in northern Russia and separately injured two more people in a strike in the town of Saronv.
Russia claims “massive strike” on Ukrainian weapons production and energy facilities. It is also said to have captured a village in eastern Ukraine as its forces there continue to slowly push the frontline.
Despite our pressure for a ceasefire, negotiations for a permanent truce in Ukraine have fizzled. In October, Donald Trump called on Russia and Ukraine to freeze existing fronts and end the war.
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The start of talks by freezing the frontlines was endorsed by Zelenskyy but rejected by Russian Foreign Ministerm Sergei Lavrov, who said that Moscow is only interested in “Long-term, sustainable peace”.
Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned on Thursday that Ukraine faces an “unending territorial collapse outside of Europe with increased pressure on Russia.
The conflict began in February 2022 with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the start of the biggest and deadliest war in Europe since the second world war.