Ukraine strikes Russian power and heat station in Moscow region, Russian official says

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By Guy Faulconbridge and Lucy Papachristou

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Ukraine struck a major heat and power station in the Moscow region on Sunday with drones, triggering a fire and forcing backup power to be switched on and mobile heating units to be deployed, the governor of the Moscow region said.

Ukrainian drones struck the Shatura Power Station, about 120 km (75 miles) east of the Kremlin, on Sunday, Moscow region governor, Andrei Vorobyov, said.

Unverified video footage on Telegram showed several bangs and then several balls of flames rising into the night sky.

“Some of the drones were destroyed by air defense forces. Several fell on the territory of the station. A fire broke out at the facility. Now it is localised,” Vorobyov said.

Three transformers at the power station, each about 65 square metres (670 square feet) in size, caught fire, the Kommersant newspaper cited the emergencies ministry as saying.

Vorobyov said that backup power had been switched on and that mobile heating systems were being deployed to the area where the temperature was around freezing point.

One local resident said that there was no heating.

Russia, which has been targeting Ukrainian energy and heat over recent months, relies on massive Soviet-era heating stations to supply households.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow and Lucy Papachristou in Tbilisi; editing by Elaine Hardcastle)