A Ukrainian power plant was hit in a Russian attack overnight, the plant's operator said, as quoted by AFP.
Targeted Russian strikes in recent months have crippled Ukraine's electricity production and forced authorities to introduce rolling blackouts and import supplies from abroad.
"Another difficult night for the Ukrainian energy sector. The Russians attacked one of DTEK's thermal power plants," the company said in a statement.
It said it was the seventh mass attack on Ukrainian power plants in the past three months.
Ukraine's national grid operator Ukrenergo said there had been a "massive strike on civil power infrastructure sites" the previous evening.
"Equipment was damaged at sites in Vinnitsa, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk and Kiev regions," it added, although the extent of the damage is still being determined.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attacks had halved the capacity of generators in the war-torn country compared with a year ago and called on allies to send more air defense systems to protect vital infrastructure.
Russia has fired nine missiles and 27 Iranian drones and that air defense systems have shot down all but four missiles.
"Critical infrastructure sites were attacked. The main direction of the attack was the eastern part of Ukraine, in particular the Dnipropetrovsk region," said the air force, one of the regions where the DTEK operates.
Air defense systems were also activated in Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Kherson, Kharkiv and Kiev regions, among others. | BGNES
