Russia continues ‘massive’ air attacks across Ukraine, pummeling power grid

Russia pummeled Ukraine with attacks across the country over the weekend as Moscow continues its assault on the country’s infrastructure and power grid ahead of winter.

“The geography of this new massive strike is very wide,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an address Saturday, noting that Russia’s main target appeared to be Ukraine’s energy system. 

As the war continues through its eighth month, Ukrainian officials have been urging citizens to conserve power ahead of what promises to be a dark winter, while the World Health Organization has warned of a humanitarian crisis.

“The aggressor continues to terrorize our country. At night, the enemy launched a massive attack: 36 rockets, most of which were shot down,” Zelensky said in a Sunday address. 

Here are some of the areas reportedly targeted by Russian attacks over the weekend: 

Southern Ukraine

The Mykolaiv and Odesa regions in southern Ukraine came under fire from Russia’s “new massive strike,” Zelensky said Saturday.  

An apartment block in Mykolaiv — a short distance from Kherson, which Ukraine appears poised to take back from Russian occupation — was hit by Russian strikes over the weekend, according to Reuters.  

The Black Sea port city of Odesa also faced strikes and power loss, though Zelensky said Saturday that some power had returned to the city. 

Maksym Marchenko, head of the Odesa regional military administration, said two rocket strikes hit “an object of the energy infrastructure,” per The Washington Post.

The Post reported that Ukrainian forces claimed they shot down 18 of 33 Russian missiles fired on Saturday as well as taking out 10 kamikaze drones in Mykolaiv.

Eastern Ukraine

In the southeast, Russian attacks again endangered the area near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, Zelensky said Saturday.

The Zaporizhzhia region and its Russian-occupied, Ukrainian-operated power plant have been a source of international concern throughout the conflict as the nearby fighting heightens the risk of nuclear accident. 

Mayor Dmytro Orlov of the Ukrainian city of Enerhodar in Zaporizhzhia said the city is “on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe because constant enemy shelling destroys civilian infrastructure and power grids,” according to a CNN report.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk regional administration, also reported on Telegram that a hospital was partially destroyed in Bakhmut as overnight shelling hit the Donetsk region in the east.

“Again and again, the Russians hit our civilian infrastructure in an attempt to sow panic,” he wrote, adding that no one was killed in the attack.

However, Bakhmut has been the site of fierce fighting as Ukraine’s military seeks to hold off Russian attacks led by the notorious Wagner paramilitary group.

Central and western Ukraine

Missile strikes were reported in Kirovohrad, located on the Inhul River in central Ukraine, and the Rivne and Khmelnytsky regions in western Ukraine.

“The situation remains difficult in Cherkasy and Kirovohrad regions, in some settlements of Khmelnytskyi and Rivne regions,” said the CEO of Ukrainian power grid Ukrenergo, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, on Sunday as the company works to turn power back on for millions of Ukrainians.

The power grid operator said Sunday that it had restored power to most of Khmelnytsky after “a massive missile strike” ravaged the energy system in the area and that work is underway to continue power restoration in Rivne and Cherkasy, among other areas.