World

Wave of Russian attacks target Ukraine civilians, power grid

January 15, 2023 9:00 am

At least five were killed and power supplies were disrupted in most regions of Ukraine in the wake of Russian raids.

Russia has carried out a wave of missile attacks across Ukrainian cities, killing at least five people and causing new disruptions in power supplies, particularly in Kyiv and Kharkiv regions, officials said.

“Unfortunately, there were hits on energy infrastructure,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address on Saturday. “In this connection, the most difficult situation is in Kharkiv region and Kyiv region.”

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Emergency blackouts were applied in “most regions” of Ukraine on Saturday due to the raids, Energy Minister German Galushchenko said. “Today the enemy attacked the country’s energy generation facilities and power grid again. There are attacks in Kharkiv, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zaporizhia, Vinnytsia and Kyiv regions,” Galushchenko said on Facebook.

“Due to the shelling, emergency blackouts have been introduced in most regions,” the minister said.

In the east-central city of Dnipro, 20 people were rescued from an apartment block where an entire section of the building had been reduced to rubble, sending smoke billowing into the sky, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office said.

“Tragedy. I’ve gone to the site. … We will be going through the rubble all night,” said Borys Filatov, mayor of the rocket-making city on the Dnieper River.