Russia Ukraine war latest: Putin attacks Ukrainian power grid after drone attack on Samara Oblast oil refinery

Energy workers in Ukraine were still restoring electricity supplies to some consumers a day after what Kyiv said was Moscow’s biggest attack of the war on the country’s power grid, authorities said on Saturday.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram that the “technical possibility for electricity supply” had been restored in most affected regions, but that the situation in the eastern Kharkiv region remained difficult.

National grid operator Ukrenergo said in a statement that consumers in Kharkiv city and the western Khmelnytskyi region were still without power, while planned outages were in force in the southern Odesa region.

Russia pounded Ukrainian power facilities on Friday, striking a vast dam over the Dnipro river, killing at least five people and leaving more than a million others across seven regions without electricity.

A fire has reportedly broken out at a Russian oil refinery after an attack by a drone.

Russian Telegram channels reported a blaze ripped through the Kuibyshev oil refinery in the country’s Samara Oblast region after local residents said they heard an explosion, according to Ukrainska Pravda.

Regional authorities said there had been no casualites.

Russia unleashed one of its most devastating attacks against Ukraine’s electric sector on Friday, an aerial assault it said was retaliation for recent strikes inside Russia and which could signal an escalation of the war just days after President Vladimir Putin cemented his grip on power in a preordained election.

Many Ukrainians were plunged into darkness across several cities, at least five people were killed, and damage to the country’s largest hydroelectric plant briefly cut off power to a nuclear plant that has been a safety risk throughout the war.

Russia fired off more than 60 exploding drones and 90 missiles in what Ukrainian officials described as the most brutal attack against its energy infrastructure since the full-scale war began in early 2022.

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, sustained the most damage, officials said, and the attack came a day after Russia had fired 31 missiles into the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

Russia’s defense ministry called Friday attacks “strikes of retribution”, signalling a potential escalation of the war just days after Putin cemented his grip on power in a preordained election.

Ukraine has increased shelling of Russia’s Belgorod region along its northeast border and has launched drone strikes targeting Russian oil refineries and other energy facilities. Its latest strike inside Russia on Friday killed one and injured at least three, according to local officials.