LONDON — All regions of Ukraine were under an airstrike alert early Thursday amid Russia’s latest long-range drone and missile attack on the country’s power grid, leaving nearly a million people without power.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia had fired about 100 drones and more than 90 missiles into Ukraine, including projectiles carrying cluster munitions. “Every such attack proves that air defense systems are needed now in Ukraine, where they save lives, and not in storage bases,” he added.
“This is especially important in winter, when we need to protect our infrastructure from Russian attacks,” Zelenskyy said.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia fired 91 missiles, of which it said 79 were shot down. Russia also launched 97 drones, the air force said, of which 35 were downed and 62 neutralized by interference.
Energy Minister German Galushchenko wrote in a Facebook post that the country’s energy grid had suffered a “tremendous blow” from strikes on infrastructure “all over Ukraine”.
People take shelter inside a metro station during a Russian attack on November 28, 2024 in Kiev, Ukraine.
Thomas Peter/Reuters
State grid operator Ukrenergo, Galushchenko added, resorted to emergency power outage schedules as a result of the attacks. Ukrenergo said on Telegram that the attack was the eleventh missile and drone attack against energy infrastructure until 2024.
US ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink wrote in X that Kyiv “woke up to air raid sirens and from the bunker we see the whole country is red because of the threat of missiles coming from Russia, because Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is under attack.”
The city’s military administration reported “a combined missile and drone attack in Kyiv, allegedly using cruise missiles and various types of drones.”
The administration has announced that the alert in the capital has lasted for more than nine hours. “All missiles and drones that threatened Kiev were destroyed,” he added in a Telegram message.
There were power and water outages in several regions of Ukraine, with explosions reported by local administrations across the country.
Maxim Kozitsky, head of the military administration of Lviv in the western part of the country, which borders Poland, said on Telegram that 523,000 customers in Lviv Oblast were without electricity after the strikes.
Oleksandr Koval, the governor of western Rivne Oblast, said 681 settlements in the region were without electricity as a result of the missile attacks, with about 280,000 people disconnected.
Volyn Oblast Governor Ivan Rudnytskyi reported another 215,000 people without power in his region.
The Russian Ministry of Defense, on the other hand, has announced that 27 Ukrainian drones have fallen in four regions of Russia, as well as in the occupied Crimea.
Andriy Yermakk — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff — wrote on Telegram that Moscow was using “terror tactics.”
“They made missile depots for attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, for war with civilians in cold weather, in the winter,” he added. “They were helped by their crazy allies, especially (North Korea).”
“Now the Russians are carrying out a combined bombing of the country,” Yerma added. “They also fight with children,” he wrote, warning that Ukraine will respond.
ABC News’ Patrick Reevell contributed to this article.
