Russia launches largest attack on Ukraine energy infrastructure since spring

In Kyiv, people woke to find the city blanketed by thick, acrid smoke after a night punctuated by the sound of explosions. An air raid alert was still on and the distant sound of air defence gunfire echoed through the murky atmosphere.

Residents in several districts were advised to close their windows until the smoke cleared.

Among those killed in the overnight strikes was a child whose body was found under the rubble of a house, Kyiv regional head Timur Tkachenko said.

Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klischko said three people were killed in total in the capital, including a Ukrainian utility company worker who was killed at a warehouse building.

Another person was killed in the southern Mykolaiv region, acting regional head Heorhiy Reshetilov said.

Two more people were killed in the north-eastern Sumy region on Tuesday, regional head Oleh Hryhorov said. A school was also hit there in a separate strike, he added.

Russia’s defence ministry said it had launched massive overnight strikes on Ukrainian facilities.

It said targets included the Trypilska thermal power plant, located some 40km from Kyiv, and claimed the plant supplied electricity to Ukrainian defence facilities.

The operator of the plant, Centrenergo, said it was assessing the scale of the damage.

Russia’s military added that it had intercepted more than 380 Ukrainian drones overnight over a number of regions, including Moscow.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military said it had struck a number of Russian military targets, including a drone warehouse in the occupied Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

Russia currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory, including a large area of Donetsk.

On the battlefield, Ukraine’s Third Army Corps said it had recaptured several settlements near the city of Lyman in Donetsk this week, as part of a counter-offensive called Operation Vivaldi. Zelensky visited troops in the area on Wednesday.

But elsewhere, the front line remains largely stagnant, with both sides failing to make significant gains.