Russia hits Kyiv power grid before winter, killing four in overnight attack
Russia kept up its missile and drone attacks on Kyiv and areas around the Ukrainian capital overnight, killing four people, including a child, while mainly targeting the power grid, officials said on Wednesday. The heavy attack caused power cuts and hit as Ukraine prepares for winter, when Russia has regularly struck energy facilities.
The latest barrage is part of a sharp escalation in Russia's aerial campaign since the end of August. Ukrainian officials say the attacks are raising pressure across the country and have led to days of near-constant air raid alerts, fuelling fears that Moscow has begun its expected cold-weather campaign to, as Ukrainian officials put it, "weaponise winter".
Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi said on Telegram, "There has been virtually no day since summer when the enemy did not attack energy infrastructure." He added, "But such a massive and combined attack happened for the first time since the end of the last heating season." Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X that the rise in Russian strikes has brought "days of almost uninterrupted air raid alerts across Ukraine". He said, "Russia is intensifying its terror: jet-powered drones during the day, ballistic and cruise missiles at night, constant attacks against our cities and civilian life."
Ukrainian officials say Moscow is not engaging with US efforts to stop the fighting, four-and-a-half years after Russia invaded its neighbour. Moscow says it wants a comprehensive settlement rather than a temporary truce, but its demand that Ukraine give up land is unacceptable to Kyiv.
A boy was killed in Vyshhorod in the wider Kyiv region, where three other people were rescued from the rubble of a private home, said Tymur Tkachenko, head of the regional military administration. Authorities said the attacks also killed three people in the capital and wounded at least four others. Ukrainian air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said Russia fired 2,850 jet-propelled drones at Ukraine in August, but by Tuesday it had already launched 3,177 this month.
Ihnat said Russia has exploited gaps in Ukraine's air defences by using ballistic missiles and new jet-powered drones, both of which are difficult to intercept. He told Ukrainian television late Tuesday that the attacks come in waves and are mostly aimed at Kyiv and the surrounding region. He said Ukraine needs more missiles for US-made Patriot air defence systems to counter ballistic missiles, as well as for other ground-based air defences. He also said repeated air raid alerts are disrupting daily life, sending people to shelters and hurting economic output.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media that the main Russian targets were energy infrastructure in Kyiv and the surrounding region, describing it as "a difficult attack" as Moscow stretches Ukraine's air defences. He thanked countries supporting Ukraine for recent deliveries of air defence assistance and said, "And the closer we get to winter, the more of this protection we need. We must do everything to ensure that Russia's bet on ballistic missile and drone terror does not pay off."
The Russian Defence Ministry said its overnight attack hit a hydroelectric power plant, a thermal power plant, an electrical substation, an energy storage facility and a data centre. Ukrainian officials did not specifically confirm those strikes, as Kyiv wants to deny Moscow intelligence on how effective its attacks were. Authorities did report hits on civilian areas in at least four districts of Kyiv. The overnight attack underlined the growing pressure on Ukraine's air defences and energy system as winter approaches.
