Russia pounds Ukrainian power facilities, Kremlin embraces ‘war’ rhetoric

KYIV: Russia pounded Ukrainian power facilities on Friday in an attack described by Kyiv as the largest airstrike on its energy infrastructure in two years of war, and portrayed by Moscow as revenge for Ukrainian attacks during its presidential election.

The missile and drone attack hit a vast dam over the Dnipro river, killed at least five people and left more than a million others without power, forcing Kyiv to seek emergency electricity supplies from Poland, Romania and Slovakia, Kyiv officials said.

The strikes, which Kyiv said caused blackouts in seven regions, revived memories of the winter of 2022-23 when Moscow regularly bombed Ukraine’s power grid.

The Russian defence ministry said the airstrike was carried out in retaliation for Ukrainian shelling and cross-border raids last week as Russians took part in a stage-managed election that handed President Vladimir Putin a fifth term.

“The world sees the targets of Russian terrorists as clearly as possible: power plants and energy supply lines, a hydroelectric dam, ordinary residential buildings, even a trolleybus,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

Condemning the attack, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko said: “The goal is not just to damage, but to try again, like last year, to cause a large-scale failure of the country’s energy system.” Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians although the war that began with its full-scale invasion in February 2022 has killed thousands of people, uprooted millions and destroyed towns and cities.