Russian strikes hit Ukraine’s grid

Moscow, Oct 31: Russia launched another massive wave of drone and missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure Thursday, causing nationwide blackouts, killing at least three people, including a 7-year-old girl, and injuring 17 others, Ukrainian officials said.
The strikes, part of what Kyiv calls Moscow’s “systematic energy terror,” hit all regions of the country as winter nears and temperatures drop.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia fired more than 650 drones and 50 missiles of various types in the latest assault, one of the most intense in recent weeks.
The attacks damaged multiple energy facilities, including two in the western Lviv region near Poland’s border. Power restrictions were imposed nationwide as emergency crews worked to restore electricity and heat to affected areas.
Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko condemned Russia’s ongoing strikes as an attempt to “plunge Ukraine into darkness,” saying Moscow was targeting the country’s “lives, dignity, and warmth” on the eve of winter. She urged Ukraine’s allies to provide more air defense systems, tougher sanctions on Russia, and increased diplomatic pressure to halt the attacks.
In the Zaporizhzhia region, two people were killed and 17 others injured, including children as young as two.
Rescuers pulled victims from the rubble of destroyed buildings, though some did not survive, according to regional head Ivan Fedorov. In the Vinnytsia region, a 7-year-old girl died in hospital from injuries sustained in the strikes, local governor Nataliia Zobolotna said.
The attacks also triggered regional security responses beyond Ukraine. Poland’s military scrambled NATO aircraft as a precaution due to the proximity of Russian missiles, briefly closing the Radom and Lublin airports to ensure operational safety, Polish authorities reported.
Ukraine’s centralized energy and municipal systems — powering water, heating, and sewage — have been repeatedly disrupted by such strikes, which Kyiv says aim to undermine civilian morale and cripple the war effort nearly four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion began.
Officials warn that the campaign’s intensity is increasing as winter approaches.