Russia launches major attack on Ukraine's energy grid as winter looms

Russia carried out strikes across Kyiv and many other cities across Ukraine. ( Reuters: Gleb Garanich )

Russia has carried out its heaviest wave of attacks on Ukraine's energy grid in months, ahead of what is expected to be a bitterly cold winter for many in the war-torn country.

At least seven people were killed in the strikes, which followed days of drone attacks on Kyiv.

Emergency power cuts were in operation, causing some tram services in Kyiv to be suspended.

Russia has unleashed a widely anticipated air campaign against Ukraine's energy grid, hitting power facilities and infrastructure around Kyiv and other regions in the heaviest combined attack on energy sites in months.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, while visiting the eastern front on Wednesday, said seven people, including a child, were killed in the attacks.

It followed days of intensifying drone barrages primarily on the capital, a prelude to what many Ukrainians expect to be a winter of attacks intended to plunge cities into cold and darkness.

Ukraine's state power grid operator Ukrenergo said it had imposed its first emergency power cuts since spring as a result of the attack in Kyiv and three surrounding regions.

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