Russia targeted natural gas plants operated by Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state-owned gas company. Ukrainian Air Force officials reported that Russia conducted a large-scale aerial assault on Ukraine on Thursday night, employing 381 drones and 35 missiles. These attacks were characterized as an attempt to cripple Ukraine’s power supply infrastructure before winter.
Serhiy Koretskyi, the chief executive of Naftogaz, stated in a declaration that the attacks constituted deliberate acts of terrorism against civilian infrastructure. These facilities provide essential gas extraction and processing services crucial for the normal functioning of citizens’ lives.
Thousands of homes across several Ukrainian cities have experienced disruptions in their power and gas supplies due to the attacks. Ukraine has made the decision to import substantial volumes of gas in an effort to manage the situation.
According to Koretskyi, Russia launched 35 missiles (many of which were ballistic) and deployed 60 drones to strike Naftogaz’s gas extraction and processing facilities in the Kharkiv region in the northeast and the Poltava region in the center. He indicated that some facilities suffered severe damage during the attacks. In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that its forces had conducted extensive attacks on the Ukrainian military-industrial complex and its supporting gas and energy infrastructure using drones and guided weapons.
According to Ukrainian officials, a child aged eight and two women were injured in the Russian air strikes in Poltava. They reported that over half of the windows of the historical St. Nicholas Church in the city were shattered in one of the attacks.
Meanwhile, Andriy Kovalenko, the head of the Center for Counteracting Disinformation in Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, reported on Friday that Ukraine had launched retaliatory strikes against Russia using domestically produced long-range drones, targeting the Orsk oil refinery, located approximately 1,400 kilometers (900 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
Authorities revealed that the Ukrainian drone strikes caused a temporary disruption in operations at the Azot chemical plant, one of Russia’s largest chemical plants, located in Berezniki, 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) from Moscow. The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that the country’s air defense systems shot down at least 20 Ukrainian drone aircraft on Thursday night. The ministry indicated that most of these aircraft were targeted while flying over the Black Sea.
