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Russia’s widespread overnight attack targeting critical energy infrastructure facilities in Ukraine was a response to strikes on Russian territory using US-made ATACMS missiles, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday.
Putin claimed Russia hit 17 targets that were “military facilities, defense industry facilities and their support systems,” without acknowledging the hits to power infrastructure. “As I have said many times, there will always be a response from our side (to the use of American ATACMS),” Putin said during comments made at a security summit in Kazakhstan.
More than a million households in Ukraine were left without power following the aerial bombardment, authorities in the country said. This is Russia’s 11th large-scale assault on Ukraine’s energy supplies this year alone, according to the energy ministry in Kyiv, a strategy that has caused nationwide rolling blackouts.
Ukraine’s energy system came “under massive enemy attack,” overnight, Energy Minister German Halushchenko said Thursday, adding the attacks took place “all over Ukraine.” Bombardments have intensified in recent months, leaving Ukraine in a precarious position as the war grinds into its third winter.
In the immediate aftermath, Ukraine’s energy operator introduced emergency power cuts in many regions, with large outages in the western regions of Lviv, Volyn and Rivne. It has since shifted back to implementing scheduled hourly power cuts.
At least five people were injured, including one person in the central Vinnytsia region, two in the southern Odesa region, and two in the capital Kyiv, officials said. In the city of Kharkiv, a missile struck a civilian business, according to local military authorities.
Air defenses were activated across the country, with damage reported in 14 regions, according to the Interior Ministry. In the capital Kyiv, residents took shelter in metro stations as the air raid alert lasted for more than nine hours, due to the combined missile and drone attack. There were no immediate reports of casualties there, authorities said.
About 215,000 households in the Volyn region were temporarily without power, authorities said earlier.
“I have a power bank for charging my phone, but I did not buy a more powerful station because I did not take it seriously that there would be such attacks and that missiles would reach us,” Dorotiy said, adding that it seemed Russia was concentrating on attacking eastern Ukraine instead. “But it did reach us.”
Kyiv resident Olha Vaynrikh, 32, told Reuters, “Our mornings begin with checking the phone to see if there is an air alert… We are indeed fed up with all of it.”
Several critical infrastructure facilities had been attacked, he later discovered.
“I expected to be without power for three hours, but according to the new schedule, it looks like we will be without electricity for eight hours today,” Turiy said. “We all understand that every winter is getting harder.”
The onslaught involved about 100 drones and more than 90 missiles, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
This comes after Russia launched a record 188 drones at Ukraine on Tuesday in a mass attack that damaged critical infrastructure in the west of the country, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.
“Every attack like this proves that air defense systems are needed in Ukraine now, where they save lives, not at storage bases,” Zelensky added, urging allies to help his country increase its air defense capabilities.
In his comments on Thursday, Putin warned that he will consider further launches of Russia’s new medium-range ballistic missile, called ‘Oreshnik,’ which was used to attack Ukraine’s Dnipro region last week.
“We will respond to the ongoing strikes on Russian territory by Western-made long-range missiles, including the possible continuation of the Oreshnik test in combat conditions,” Putin said.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense is “selecting targets for hitting on Ukrainian territory. These could be military facilities, defense industry enterprises or decision-making centers in Kyiv,” he added.
Putin previously said that Moscow also considers itself entitled to use weapons against military targets belonging to countries that allow their weapons to be used against Russia.
This story has been updated with additional developments.