Russia attacks Ukraine's energy infrastructure with a massive wave of drones and missiles, reportedly killing three people

Kyiv, Ukraine — Russia unleashed a massive drone and missile attack on Ukraine on Monday, they attacked energy infrastructure, reportedly killing at least three people and hitting power plants in at least three regions. Officials in the Zaporizhia, Rivne and Lviv regions said in messages on social media that energy infrastructure had been attacked. Officials in several other regions also reported attacks on power plants and other critical infrastructure facilities.

The barrage began around midnight and lasted well past dawn. It was apparently Russia's largest attack on Ukraine in weeks.

“The energy infrastructure has once again become a target of Russian terrorists. Unfortunately, there is damage in several regions,” said Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal Shmyhal, adding that Ukraine's state-owned power grid operator, Ukrenergo, had been forced to implement emergency power outages to stabilize the system.

He called on Ukraine's allies to supply Kiev with long-range weapons and give permission to use them against targets inside Russia.

“To stop the barbaric shelling of Ukrainian cities, it is necessary to destroy the place from which the Russian missiles are fired,” Shmyhal said. “We are counting on the support of our allies and will definitely make Russia pay for it.”

According to the Ukrainian Air Force, several groups of Russian drones flew towards the east, north, south and center of the country, followed by several cruise and ballistic missiles. Explosions were heard in the capital Kyiv, and electricity and water supplies in the city were cut off by the attack, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

In the wake of the barrage, the city administration announced plans to open “invincibility points” – shelters where people can charge their devices and refresh themselves during power outages. Such points were first opened in Ukraine in the fall of 2022, when Russia attacked the country's energy infrastructure with weekly barrages.

Ihor Polishchuk, mayor of the western Ukrainian city of Lutsk, said a multi-storey residential building and an unspecified infrastructure facility were hit, killing one person. Another person was killed in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, where the attack sparked several fires, damaged a dozen households and completely destroyed two, regional head Serhii Lysak said. One person was rescued from the rubble, Lysak said.

One person was also killed in the southeastern, partially occupied Zaporizhia region, said regional head Ivan Fedorov. According to Fedorov, an infrastructure facility was hit and caught fire.

Three people were injured in the southern region of Mykolaiv, reported regional head Vitalii Kim. He called on residents to use the “points of invincibility” in the region.

In the outskirts of Kyiv, one person was injured in an attack on unspecified infrastructure facilities and residential buildings, said regional head Ruslan Kravchenko.

Private Ukrainian energy company DTEK introduced emergency power outages, saying in an online statement that “energy workers across the country are working around the clock to restore electricity to Ukrainians' homes.”

In neighboring Poland, the military said that as a result of the attack, Polish and NATO air defenses had been activated in the eastern part of the country.

In Russia, officials reported a Ukrainian drone attack overnight and on Monday morning.

In the central Russian region of Saratov, four people were injured when drones struck residential buildings in two cities. One drone crashed into a residential high-rise in the city of Saratov, another hit a residential building in the city of Engels, home to a military airport that had been attacked earlier, local authorities said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that a total of 22 Ukrainian drones were intercepted over eight Russian regions during the night and morning, including the Saratov and Yaroslavl regions in central Russia.