RUSSIAN drone strikes have damaged a thermal power plant in Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine overnight, leaving 46,000 consumers without heating as temperatures plunge below freezing, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
“This was done deliberately to leave people without heat in sub-zero temperatures and create a humanitarian catastrophe,” Shmyhal said on the Telegram messenger app.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack had a much higher impact, leaving 100,000 in the city without heat.
“An ordinary Ukrainian city. Ordinary civilian infrastructure. It has nothing to do with hostilities or the frontline situation,” he said in a post on X.
“This is yet another clear demonstration that Russians are waging war against our people and against life itself in Ukraine.”
He added that repair crews are “working tirelessly” to restore heating in Mykolaiv.
Russia attacked Ukraine with 143 drones overnight, but the Ukrainian military said it shot down 95 of them, while 46 did not reach their targets, likely thanks to the use of electromagnetic countermeasures that disrupt drone attacks.
At least one person was injured in the overnight attacks which also damaged houses in the Kyiv region, Ukrainian officials said. The temperature in Mykolaiv is expected to fall to minus 7 degrees Celsius (19.4 Fahrenheit) on Sunday night.
Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from Kyiv, said the Ukrainian army announced it has seen an “uptick in attacks by Russian forces” over the past 24 hours.
“In general … we’ve seen no really big gains made by Russian forces for months now – but no indication that the fighting is going down,” he said.
