Russia has carried out several more airstrikes on the country’s “power grid” to plunge Ukraine into darkness. Russia began airstrikes on power stations in Ukraine on Monday last week. According to the BBC, almost one-third of the country’s power stations have been destroyed. Ukrainian officials said on Saturday that Russian forces attacked “critical infrastructure” in the Cherky region, southeast of the capital Kyiv.
Significant fires were also reported near the town of Smila. The city of Khmelnytskyi has been without electricity in the far west of the country. There were also reports of airstrikes and power outages from Odessa. The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, said Russia launched a major attack targeting the country’s electricity facilities.
He said a large-scale attack had been launched across the country this time. Russia is attacking Ukraine’s central, western, southern, and eastern regions. As a result, about 1.5 million people in that country have been left without electricity, according to Kyiv. Ukraine’s national power supply authority, Ukrainergo, said the damage to power infrastructure could be far more significant than last month’s Russian bombings.
President Zelensky said they shot down most of the missiles and drones that Russia fired. He claimed that Russia fired more than 36 rockets on Saturday, although most of them were intercepted. On Friday, the Ukrainian President claimed Russia was planning to mine a hydroelectric dam in the country’s Kherson region. The dam is now under the control of Moscow’s troops. He said that if the Kakhovka dam is destroyed, millions of people will be at risk of flooding.
However, Russia rejects the plan to destroy the dam, saying that Ukraine is firing missiles at it instead. The barrier is essential for Russia to access areas in the Kherson region that is now partially under Russian control. The dam is located on the Dniper (Danipro in Ukraine) river.
Sergei Kiral, deputy mayor of the western city of Lviv, said Russia aimed to destroy Ukraine’s critical infrastructure before winter and spread the war beyond the battlefield. President Zelensky also claimed that despite such a massive attack by Russia, the advance of the Ukrainian military would not be interrupted.
Reference:
https://www.bbc.com/bengali/news-63362565
https://bangla.bdnews24.com/world/c7llf46k3y
