Ukraine conflict: Russia launches ‘major missile attack’ on Ukrainian energy facilities

Russia has launched a "major missile attack" on Ukrainian energy facilities and infrastructure with explosions reported in at least three cities.

Local authorities reported blasts in the capital, Kyiv, southern Kryvyi Rih and north-eastern Kharkiv as authorities sounded air raid alarms across the country warning of a new devastating barrage of the Russian strikes that have occurred intermittently since mid-October.

Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that the city is without electricity.

Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Syniehubov reported three strikes on the city's critical infrastructure.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a senior official in President Volodymyr Zelensky's office, reported a strike on a residential building in Kryvyi Rih, warning on Telegram: "There may be people under the rubble." He said emergency services were on site.

Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko reported explosions in the north-eastern Desnianskyi and western Holosiivskyi district, urging residents to go to shelters.

"The attack on the capital continues," he wrote on Telegram.

The strikes targeting energy infrastructure have been part of a new Russian strategy to try to freeze Ukrainians into submission after several key battlefield losses by Russian forces in recent months.

A woman walks past a destroyed armoured personal carrier in the liberated village of Petropavlivka near Kupiansk, Kharkiv region on December 15, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by SERGEY BOBOK / AFP) (Photo by SERGEY BOBOK/AFP via Getty Images)

The Ministry of Defence has also reported on Russian troop movement in their latest intelligence update which read: “in recent weeks, Russian forces have continued to expend considerable effort to construct extensive defensive positions along the front line.

"The Russian constructions follow traditional military plans for entrenchment, largely unchanged since the Second World War. Such constructions are likely to be vulnerable to modern, precision indirect strikes.

"The construction of major defensive lines is further illustration of Russia’s reversion to positional warfare that has been largely abandoned by most modern Western militaries.”