Ukraine ‘crippled’ by Russia’s new strategy of attacking power stations

A top adviser of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that his nation is crippled by an overwhelming Russian attack on its energy infrastructure, especially power stations. According to Mykhailo Podolyak, Russia has adopted a new strategy of attacking power stations in Ukraine simultaneously with 10-12 missiles, thus rendering the already-stretched air defence ineffective.

“Now we have to see whether we can keep the system running, whether we need more air defence systems, especially against anti-ultrasonic ballistic missiles, and whether we can restore the destroyed facilities,” the adviser said in an interview.

Russian attacks on power stations

Earlier on Thursday (April 11), Russia targetted a coal and gas-fired power plant in the south of Kyiv, triggering a fire in the turbine hall. While no staff was killed in the attack, the plant lost its 100 per cent power generation capacity, said its operator Centrenergo.

People living nearby said the plant was hit by multiple missiles before 5 am. Subsequently, a fire broke out that took several hours to be brought under control. According to the company’s chair Andriy Gota, “The scale of destruction is terrifying.”

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The same company lost the Zmiiv power station to a Russian bombing near the city of Kharkiv around three weeks back.

On Wednesday (Apr 10), Russia targetted two gas storage sites owned by Naftogaz, and two other power plants.

Why is Russia targeting power stations?

As per Russian leader Vladimir Putin, based on his conversation with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko on Thursday, Russia’s attacks are in response to Ukraine’s attack on oil refineries inside his country. “Unfortunately, we observed a series of strikes on our energy sites recently and were obliged to respond,” Putin said.

“The strikes on energy are linked in part with solving one of the tasks we set for ourselves, and that is demilitarisation,” the Russian leader said, adding that the attacks had been timed for the spring and not in winter “out of humanitarian considerations”.

Thanks to relentless attacks on energy infrastructure, Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv is reported to be suffering heavy power cuts. On Thursday, 200,000 homes were reported to be without power in Kharkiv region.

(With inputs from agencies)