Russia continues almost daily strikes at Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, and hit energy facilities in the country’s south and in the far western region of Lviv on Sunday, local authorities said.
Kremlin forces targeted high-voltage electricity substations in the Odesa region, damaging equipment, which caused power to be cut off to more than 170,000 households in Ukraine’s third largest city, according to electricity provider DTEK.
Electricity has been partially restored, helped by solar and wind power, yet the situation remains difficult and public transport powered by electricity was halted, DTEK said.
In Lviv region, not far from Ukraine’s border with Poland, Russia targeted a critical infrastructure for the third time since March 24, destroying an administrative building and killing at least one person, Maksym Kozytskyi, the head of the region, said on Telegram.
Rescue operations are ongoing and there could be more people trapped under the building’s debris, he said.
Ukraine shot down nine cruise missiles out of 14 directed at it overnight, as well as nine of 11 drones, air defence forces said. Russia also fired a ballistic missile and a guided aviation rocket, the forces said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly urged Ukraine’s partners to supply more air-defence equipment after Russia stepped up missile attacks in recent weeks, causing electricity shortages across the country.
More than $60 billion in planned US military assistance to Kyiv has been bogged down for months by partisan political infighting in Washington.
“Russian terrorists are currently carrying out such heinous attacks in an attempt to drain Ukraine’s power,” Zelensky said Saturday in his nightly address to the nation. “We sent necessary signals and concrete requests to all of our partners who have the necessary air defence systems and missiles.”
The US, Europe and other allies “know exactly what we need, and they all understand how critical it is to assist Ukraine in defending itself against these strikes right now,” Zelensky said.
In an interview with the Washington Post done in Kyiv on Thursday, Zelensky vowed to keep up retaliatory drone strikes on Russian oil-refining facilities despite US discontent with its campaign.
“We used our drones. Nobody can say to us you can’t,” Zelensky said of the strikes that have slashed refinery output.
Zelensky also indicated in the interview that delays in receiving security assistance are gradually corroding Ukraine’s defensive capabilities.
“If there is no US support, it means that we have no air defence, no Patriot missiles, no jammers for electronic warfare, no 155-millimetre artillery rounds,” he said. “It means we will go back, retreat, step by step, in small steps.”