Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians without power after Russian air strikes

According to authorities, hundreds of thousands of people there have been cut off from power after massive Russian air strikes in Ukraine. In the western regions of Lviv, Rivne and Volyn, hundreds of kilometers from the border with Russia, more than a million people were without electricity on Thursday, local authorities said. The Ukrainian Air Force had previously sounded a nationwide air alert.

In the Lviv region, 523,000 electricity customers are cut off from energy supplies, local governor Maksym Kosyzkyj said in online networks. In the Rivne region, more than 280,000 households are without electricity, Governor Alexander Koval said on Telegram. There are also problems with the water supply. Particularly in the regional capital Rivne, some of the schools have been converted to distance learning.

In the neighboring Volhynia region on the Polish border, more than 200,000 households were cut off from energy supplies. According to authorities, there were impacts in the regional capital Lutsk. For the time being, nothing was known about any deaths or injuries.

The Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko had previously stated on the online service Facebook that the energy infrastructure was exposed to “massive enemy attacks”. “Attacks on energy facilities are taking place across Ukraine,” he said. The operator of the national power grid DTEK said it carried out emergency power shutdowns primarily in Kiev, Odessa and Dnipro. Because of Russian missiles and previous drone attacks, the capital Kiev was under an air alert for nine hours straight from night to early in the morning.

Russia and Ukraine increased their fire on each other last week after Kiev attacked targets inside Russia with US ATACMS missiles for the first time last week following approval from Washington. The Kremlin responded by using a new type of Russian medium-range missile for the first time.

Ukraine has been resisting a Russian invasion for over two and a half years. The Russian military regularly attacks the Ukrainian energy system, including in western regions near the EU border.