Russia has launched one of its biggest air attacks on Ukraine of the war so far, the head of the Ukrainian air force has said.
At least six people were killed and dozens wounded as missiles and drones were fired into more than half of Ukraine’s regions on Monday.
Power infrastructure was hit, causing widespread blackouts, as the entire country was put under air raid alert and told to take shelter.
Russia confirmed it had launched attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure – one of its long-term tactics – and said all its targets were hit.
The barrage of missile and drone attacks began across the country overnight on Monday and continued into the morning.
According to Mykola Oleshchuk, the commander of Ukraine’s air force, Russia launched 127 missiles and 109 attack drones. Out of them, Ukraine shot down 102 missiles and 99 drones, he said on Telegram.
Mr Oleshchuk called the combined strike “the most massive aerial attack”.
Previously, an attack last December when 158 missiles and drones were fired at Ukraine, had been considered the largest attack so far.
While the main target of this attack was energy infrastructure, it was also an attempt by Moscow to strike at Ukraine’s reserves of another key resource: morale.
Ukrainians have been electrified by the recent successful incursion of their troops deep into Russian territory in the Kursk region.
With Monday’s strikes, Russia was intending to bring ordinary people in Ukraine back down to earth with a bump – reminding them, and politicians in Western capitals, that the Kremlin still has the upper hand in this war.
The message from Moscow was make no mistake, Russia can still inflict misery on the Ukrainian population whenever it chooses.
Some 15 regions of Ukraine were targeted by Russia in the strikes, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said earlier – using weapons including drones, cruise missiles and supersonic missiles.
“There are wounded and dead,” Mr Shmyhal said on the Telegram social media app.
Dozens of people were injured, and those who died included:
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Two men – one aged 69 and another aged 47 – were killed in separate attacks in the Dnipropetrovsk region, local governor Sergiy Lysak said. Others were injured including a 14-year-old girl, he added
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A man was killed when his house was hit in Zaporizhzhia, said the area’s governor
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The mayor of Lutsk said one person had been killed when an “infrastructure facility” was hit. Five others were wounded and most parts of the city had no running water, he added
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In Izyum in Kharkiv region, a man was killed in a missile strike, the regional head said
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And in Zhytomyr region in western Ukraine, a woman died after homes and infrastructure buildings were hit by missiles, the governor said.
The attacks caused serious damage to infrastructure, with power outages reported in many cities – including Kyiv – and water supplies disrupted.
One of the remaining power stations – a hydroelectric plant north of Kyiv – was one of the latest targets. The damage is still being assessed.
Russia has been targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure since early on in its full-scale invasion, which began in February 2022.
In recent months it has renewed its campaign of attacks on the power grid, causing frequent blackouts across the country.
In June, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had destroyed half of his country’s electricity-generating capacity since it began pummelling its energy facilities in late March.
Ukraine is buying energy from the European Union. However, this is not enough and so most days, the country has a planned nationwide blackout to protect critical needs such as hospitals and military sites.
Russia’s defence ministry said it attacked electricity and gas facilities, as well as sites storing Western weapons.
“All designated targets were hit, resulting in power outages and disrupted rail transport of weapons and ammunition to the front line,” it said.
It has been a year of bad news on the battlefield for Kyiv, with Russia gaining ground steadily in the eastern Donbas region.
There have been problems with mobilisation and reports that Ukraine is running out of men.
But following Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Kursk, the videos of soldiers hoisting the Ukrainian flag over Russian villages they had seized gave a badly-needed boost to Ukrainian morale.
And it showed the West that Kyiv is still capable of carrying out complex, daring and – most importantly – successful offensives.
On Monday, Mr Zelensky called on Western allies including Britain, America and France to change their rules and let Ukraine use their weapons to strike deeper inside Russia.
Ukraine is allowed to use some Western weapons to hit targets inside Russia – but not long-range weapons.
And he said “we could do much more to protect lives” if European air forces worked with Ukraine’s air defence.
Also on Monday, Ukraine tried to attack an oil refinery in Yaroslavl, a city north-east of Moscow, according to the regional governor. No casualties or damage have been reported.
And Russia’s defence ministry said it had destroyed nine drones over its Saratov region, which is 560 miles (900km) from the Ukrainian border.
