Russian forces attack power station in Kyiv region, Ukraine’s energy ministry says

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KYIV (Reuters) -Russian forces struck a thermal power generation facility in the Kyiv region as part of an overnight attack, Ukraine’s energy ministry said on Monday, provoking localised blackouts and gas outages.

The strikes followed a day after Moscow’s largest air attack of its three-and-a-half year war on Ukraine.

“The goal is obvious: to cause even more hardship to the peaceful population of Ukraine, to leave Ukrainian homes, hospitals, kindergartens and schools without light and heat,” the ministry wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

It added that rescuers and technicians were working on site on Monday.

Russia’s defence ministry confirmed that it had hit Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

Moscow has regularly bombarded Ukraine’s energy facilities since it launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, causing massive blackouts in previous years.

Ukraine’s electricity grid operator Ukrenergo said on Monday that Russia had attacked power infrastructure in several regions of Ukraine, which had caused localised blackouts.

“Emergency repair work is ongoing, and most consumers had their power restored by Monday morning,” it said.

Mykola Kalashnyk, the governor of Kyiv region, said the attack had damaged the local gas grid and that over 8,000 properties in eight settlements would be disconnected from their gas supply over the next two days as repairs were carried out.

“For several weeks now, the enemy has been striking energy system facilities in various regions,” Serhiy Kovalenko, CEO of energy company Yasno, wrote on X.

“Of course, no one knows what will happen this autumn, but given the recent strikes, there is no particular cause for optimism,” he added in a subsequent post.

(Reporting by Anastasiia Malenko and Yuliia Dysa; Writing by Max Hunder; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Joe Bavier)