Russian Air Barrage Targets Ukraine, Damaging Gas Infrastructure
(Bloomberg) -- Russia launched a massive airstrike at targets across Ukraine overnight, including at energy facilities, killing at least five people and wounding several others.
The barrage — from Kharkiv in the northeast to Lviv in the far west and Odesa on the Black Sea coast — comprised more than 50 missiles, including the ballistic Kinzhal variety, and about 500 attack drones, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on the X platform.
Four of the deaths came in Lviv. Hundreds of customers were without gas in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, where one person was killed, regional Governor Ivan Fedorov, said on Telegram.
The attack also damaged gas infrastructure ahead of the winter heating season, according to Ukraine’s Naftogaz. More than 110,000 households were left without electricity after the strike, said Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko.
Other regions under attack included Chernihiv, Vinnytsia, Ivano-Frankivsk and Kherson.
“Moscow continues to strike homes, schools, and energy facilities — proving that destruction remains its only strategy,” Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko said on X.
Neighboring Poland scrambled jets in response to the Russian attack, the country’s armed forces said in a statement on X. Poland has repeatedly responded to Russian activity in western Ukraine over recent weeks.
The attacks followed an airstrike on Saturday against a railway station in the northern Sumy region that injured at least 30 people. With its full-scale invasion well into its fourth year, Moscow has increased its aerial bombardments over the past weeks, with a focus on energy infrastructure, while Ukraine continues to target Russian energy facilities with drones.
The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed it used Kinzhal missiles in the overnight attack, which it said targeted military-industrial facilities as well as the gas and energy infrastructure that supports them, according to a statement on Telegram. The ministry said its forces intercepted 32 Ukrainian drones in eight regions overnight, and destroyed another 30 unmanned aircraft on Sunday morning over the Belgorod region and annexed Crimean peninsula.
Zelenskiy made a plea for “faster implementation of all defense agreements, especially on air defense, to deprive this aerial terror of any meaning.” The US and Europe “must act” to make Russian President Vladimir Putin stop, he added.
(Updates with more details in the fourth and ninth paragraphs.)
©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
