KYIV (Reuters) – Russian forces targeted Ukraine’s energy and gas infrastructure in their latest drone and missile attack, Ukraine’s energy minister said on Friday.
“Once again, energy and gas infrastructure in various regions of Ukraine has come under massive missile and drone fire,” Energy Minister German Galushchenko said in a statement on Facebook.
“Wherever possible, rescuers and power engineers are working to eliminate the consequences. All necessary measures are being taken to stabilise power and gas supplies,” he added.
The attack damaged natural gas production facilities of Ukraine’s state-run oil and gas firm Naftogaz, the company said in a statement.
“Production facilities that ensure gas production were damaged. Fortunately, there were no casualties,” Naftogaz said via the Telegram messaging app.
Ternopil Governor Viacheslav Nehoda said the attack struck a critical industrial facility in the western region and announced possible limits on gas supplies. Ukraine’s air defence shot down a missile and there were no reported casualties, he said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, Russian forces struck a civilian enterprise and injured at least five people, according to its governor Oleh Syniehubov.
In the northern region of Chernihiv, an attack damaged one of the production facilities, according to its governor Viacheslav Chaus who did not provide additional details.
The governor of the western region of Ivano-Frankivsk, Svitlana Onyshchuk, said the air defence repelled an attack on infrastructure facilities. She reported no damage or casualties.
Russia, which previously focused its missile and drone attacks on the Ukrainian electricity sector, has in recent months sharply stepped up its attacks on Ukrainian gas storage facilities and production fields.
(Reporting by Anastasiia Malenko; Editing by Tom Hogue and Michael Perry)
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