Zelensky: Russian airstrikes destroyed 30% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in single week

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russian airstrikes have destroyed 30 percent of his country’s energy infrastructure in the past week and have caused “massive blackouts” across Ukraine.

The Ukrainian leader made the comments in a tweet on Tuesday, warning that such airstrikes had left no room for negotiations with the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Another kind of Russian terrorist attacks: targeting energy & critical infrastructure. Since Oct 10, 30% of Ukraine’s power stations have been destroyed, causing massive blackouts across the country. No space left for negotiations with Putin’s regime,” Zelensky wrote on his Twitter account.

Russia began its “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, with the declared aim of “de-Nazifying” the country.

Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and among the 10 largest in the world, was under almost constant strikes for weeks earlier this year, with Ukraine accusing Russia of storing heavy weapons in the plant and Moscow denying the allegation.

Moscow also took control of the Chernobyl plant, about 100 kilometers north of Kiev, which has been one of the most radioactive locations on earth since it saw an explosion in its fourth reactor in April 1986.

Multiple explosion rip through Kiev while heavy fighting rages in Donbas

Multiple explosions ripped through the Ukrainian capital Kiev in the wee hours of Monday morning, according to local officials.

On October 10, Putin announced a shift in the military operations in Ukraine, shortly after Russian troops launched massive long-range missile strikes across Ukraine, alleging that Kiev had masterminded a number of “terrorist attacks” against key Russian infrastructure over the past several months, including the Crimean Bridge bombing attack.

Separately on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s emergency services, Oleksandr Khorunzhyi, said that over 1,100 Ukrainian towns and villages had been left without power after 10 days of Russian strikes against energy facilities across the country.

During the past 10 days, Russia carried out around “190 mass strikes with missiles, kamikaze drones and artillery in 16 Ukrainian regions and in the city of Kiev,” he said.

“For now, 1,162 settlements in Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovograd, Zhytomyr, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Lugansk, Mykolaiv, Kherson regions remain cut off from electricity,” Khorunzhyi added.

Russia: Ukraine uses ‘kamikaze drones’ to hit Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant

Russian forces managed to shoot down all of the drones outside the territory of the plant, the defense ministry said.

Days earlier, a massive blast ripped through parts of the bridge linking Crimea to Russia, claiming the lives of three civilians. It also caused significant damage to the road traffic section of the bridge.

Moscow said Ukraine was behind the huge explosion, while some officials in Kiev celebrated the attack.

In October 12, Ukraine’s Minister of Energy German Galushchenko said that 30 percent of his country’s energy infrastructure had been destroyed in the first two days of Russia’s missile strikes beginning on October 10. The minister said it was a major shift in how Russia was using military force against Ukraine.

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