Russia widens Ukraine strikes, hits power grid as winter fears deepen
Russia widened its missile and drone attacks on Ukraine overnight, killing seven people, including a child, and wounding 24, Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday. The strikes mainly targeted the power grid, caused outages and added to concerns that Moscow may be stepping up attacks on energy facilities ahead of winter.
Ukraine says Russia has sharply increased its aerial campaign since the end of August, putting pressure on the country as it prepares for colder weather. Ukrainian officials have described the strategy as an attempt to "weaponise winter", while also saying Moscow is not engaging with US efforts to stop the fighting 4 years after the invasion began. Russia says it wants a comprehensive settlement rather than a temporary truce, but its demand that Ukraine give up territory remains unacceptable to Kyiv.
Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi said on Telegram: "There has been virtually no day since summer when the enemy did not attack energy infrastructure." He added: "But such a massive and combined attack happened for the first time since the end of the last heating season." Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the rise in strikes had brought "days of almost uninterrupted air raid alerts across Ukraine". "Russia is intensifying its terror: jet-powered drones during the day, ballistic and cruise missiles at night, constant attacks against our cities and civilian life," he said on X.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attacks killed seven civilians across the country and injured 24, without giving further details. In the wider Kyiv region, a boy was killed in an attack on a private home in Vyshhorod, according to regional military administration head Tymur Tkachenko, who said three other people were rescued from the rubble. Authorities also said three people were killed in the capital and four were injured.
Ukraine's air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said Russia fired 2,850 jet-powered drones at Ukraine in August and had already launched 3,177 by Tuesday this month. He said Russia was exploiting gaps in Ukraine's air defences with ballistic missiles and new jet-powered drones, which are difficult to intercept. The attacks, which mostly targeted Kyiv and the surrounding region in waves, are disrupting daily life and hurting economic activity, he said. Ihnat said Ukraine needed more missiles for US-made Patriot systems to counter ballistic missiles, as well as more ammunition for other ground-based air defences.
Zelenskyy said the main targets were energy facilities in Kyiv and the surrounding region, calling it "a difficult attack" as Russia stretched Ukraine's air defences. Thanking partner countries for recent air defence deliveries, he said: "And the closer we get to winter, the more of this protection we need. We must do everything to ensure that Russia's bet on ballistic missile and drone terror does not pay off." Russia's Defence Ministry said it had hit a hydroelectric plant, a thermal power plant, an electrical substation, an energy storage facility and a data centre. Ukrainian officials did not specifically confirm those strikes, while authorities said civilian areas in at least four Kyiv districts were hit, underlining the mounting pressure on Ukraine's power system and air defences before winter.
