80% of Ukraine’s coal, gas power plants hit by Russian attacks: minister

Russia has hit up to 80 percent of Ukraine’s conventional power plants and half its hydroelectric plants in recent weeks in the heaviest attacks since war began, Ukrainian energy minister German Galushchenko said Monday.

Moscow has launched almost daily strikes on Ukraine’s power grid since late March, causing major blackouts in the northeastern city of Kharkiv.

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“Up to 80% of thermal generation was attacked. More than half of hydro generation and a large number of substations,” Galushchenko told journalists in Kyiv.

“This is the largest attack on Ukraine’s energy sector” since war began, the minister said.

Before Russia’s invasion, Ukraine’s power generation was fairly evenly balanced between coal, natural gas and nuclear, with a smaller percentage of hydroelectric.

The country’s largest nuclear power station in Zaporizhzhia has been under Russian control since near the start of the war.

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Galushchenko said that “the scale and impact of these attacks is much greater” than earlier attacks over the winter from 2022 to 2023 when millions suffered in freezing temperatures without electricity and heating.

“We see that Russians modified the weapons,” the minister said, adding that they now use Iranian-style explosive drones and missiles that cause more damage per attack.

© Agence France-Presse