Russia launched another massive strike against Ukraine with drones and missiles, targeting the country’s electrical grid, including western districts close to the border with the European Union on Thursday, November 28.
This comes on the back of Ukraine firing UK-made Storm Shadow and US-supplied ATACMS missiles on Russian soil for the first time in 1,000 days of war.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, the majority of the missiles were aimed toward Ukraine’s western provinces of Volyn, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Khmelnytskyi, Vinnytsia, and Zhytomyr. Local officials reported attacks on electricity infrastructure in both Kyiv and Mykolaiv.
“The energy sector is under massive enemy attack again. Attacks on energy facilities are taking place throughout Ukraine,” Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko said in a statement. “The transmission system operator, NPP Ukrenergo, has urgently introduced emergency power outages.”
Oleksandr Koval, the head of the Rivne administration, stated that energy supplies had been turned off to around 280,000 residents in the western region.
According to regional director Maksym Kozytsky, up to 523,000 households and businesses in the Lviv region were without electricity. Authorities in Kherson warned that power outages could last for days.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a total of about 100 drones and more than 90 missiles of various types were launched.
“Several regions reported Kalibr missile strikes with cluster munitions, deliberately aimed at civilian infrastructure,” Zelenskyy said in a statement. “The use of these cluster elements significantly complicates the work of our rescuers and power engineers in mitigating the damage, marking yet another vile escalation in Russia’s terrorist tactics.”
This isn’t the first time Russia has struck Ukrainian energy infrastructure, In September, October, and November 2022, a wave of missile strikes left almost half of Ukraine’s energy grid damaged. The aim was clear: to freeze the nation into submission during the harsh winter months
Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to hit decision-making centers in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv with the country’s latest ballistic missile, Oreshnik, in what he called a response to “continued attacks” using US-supplied Atacms missiles on Russian soil.
So, where does this leave us? Russia’s strikes on Ukraine are more than acts of war; they’re statements of intent. They show Russia’s willingness to strike basic human needs, turning power and heat into tools of oppression.
What do you think about Russia’s strategy of targeting energy infrastructure? Is it a sign of desperation or a calculated move to cripple Ukraine’s resistance? Let me know in the comments.