Russia launches missiles in overnight attack on Ukraine's energy infrastructure

RUSSIA launched a barrage of missiles against Ukraine overnight, in attacks that appeared to target the country’s energy infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Russia said its air defence systems had intercepted more than 60 Ukrainian drones over the southern Krasnodar region.

Ukraine’s air force said on Saturday that Russia had launched 34 missiles against Ukraine overnight, of which 21 had been shot down by Ukrainian air defences.

In a post on Telegram, energy minister Herman Halushchenko said energy facilities in Dnipropetrovsk in the south of the country and Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv in the west had been attacked and that an engineer was injured.

Private energy operator DTEK said four of its thermal power plants were damaged and that there were “casualties”, without going into detail.

Earlier this month Russia destroyed one of Ukraine’s largest power plants and damaged others in a massive missile and drone attack as it renewed its push to target Ukraine’s energy facilities.

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Ukraine has appealed to its Western allies for more air defence systems to ward off such attacks.

At a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group on Friday, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the US will provide Ukraine with additional munitions and gear for its air defence launchers.

Further east, a psychiatric hospital was damaged and one person was wounded after Russia launched a missile attack overnight on Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv.

Photos from the scene showed a huge crater on the grounds of the facility and patients taking shelter in corridors. Regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said a 53-year-old woman was hurt.

In Russia, the Defence Ministry said Russian air defence systems had intercepted 66 drones over the country’s southern Krasnodar region. Two more drones were shot down over the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

The governor of the Krasnodar region, Veniamin Kondratyev, said Ukrainian forces targeted an oil refinery and infrastructure facilities but that there were no casualties or serious damage.

The regional department of the Emergency Situations Ministry reported that a fire broke out at the Slavyansk oil refinery in Slavyansk-on-Kuban during the attack.

Ukrainian officials normally decline to comment on attacks on Russian soil, but the Ukrainian energy ministry said on Saturday that two oil refineries in the Krasnodar region had been hit by drones.