Russia launched about 120 missiles and 90 drones in a “massive,” coordinated airstrike against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, Ukraine’s president announced today. Volodymyr Zelenskywhile according to newer information from international media, the dead increased to at least 10, from 4 which was the previous count.

“The enemy’s target was the energy infrastructure throughout Ukraine. Unfortunately there is damage from the impacts and debris,” Zelenskiy wrote in a post on social media.

For his part, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sibiha he spoke of “one of the largest” airstrikes Russia has launched against his country.

“Russia launched one of its biggest airstrikes: drones and missiles against peaceful villages, sleeping civilians, vital infrastructure,” he complained.

Sibiha also assessed that these attacks are “the real answer” of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the leaders who “called him or visited him” lately.

This is an indirect reference by the Ukrainian minister to the telephone conversation that Putin had on Friday with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz — the first since December 2022 — and the participation of many world leaders, and especially UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres , at a meeting of the Brics group organized a few days ago in Russia.

Ukraine’s largest private electricity provider, the DTEKannounced that Russian airstrikes caused “severe damage” to its thermal power plant equipment.

In a social media post, DTEK indicated that company workers are repairing the damage, but did not specify which stations were affected.

At the same time, he added that there are “emergency power outages” in the Kiev region and in two more eastern provinces of Ukraine.

“Emergency power outages in Kyiv, Kyiv Oblast, Donetsk Oblast, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast,” he said on Telegram.

According to the mayor of Odessa, electricity has been cut off in some districts of the port city, in southern Ukraine.

“Critical infrastructure” or “energy” infrastructure was hit by Russian attacks in Vinnytsia, Rivne, Volkhinye and Zaporizhia provinces, local authorities said.

It is currently difficult to assess the extent of the damage.

DTEK clarified that this is the eighth large-scale attack against the power plants this year.

A little earlier the Ukrainian Minister of Energy Herman Halushchenko had written on Telegram that “a massive attack against the energy system is underway” and that the Russian armed forces have targeted “electricity production and transmission facilities throughout Ukraine.”

Dead in Mykolife and Dnipropetrovsk

At Mykolifein southern Ukraine, two women were killed and six more people, including two children, were injured in a Russian drone attack, its governor said Vitali Kim.

According to Kim, the Russian attack damaged houses and high-rise buildings, a shopping center and several vehicles, while he emphasized that infrastructure was also affected.

In addition, two workers were killed and three more injured in a Russian strike at a railway station in Dnipropetrovsk province, the railway management company said.

The mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko for his part, he spoke of an injured person from a drone fragment falling on a residence.

At Zaporizhia two people were injured, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said, and one person was injured in Dnipro, according to Serhiy Lysak, the governor of the region where that city belongs.

Ukrainian authorities and media reported that explosions were heard in various regions, from Zaporizhia, Odesa and Mykolayiv in the south to Chernihiv in the north.

Russia has stepped up its missile and drone attacks and destroyed half of Ukraine’s energy production capabilities, according to Zelensky.

Kiev is calling on its Western allies to help restore its power grid, a plan that requires major investment, and to provide it with more air defenses to counter Russian bombing.

There are widespread power outages in Ukraine, which makes for a difficult winter.