Officials in Ukraine said on May 8 that a major overnight attack by more than 50 Russian missiles and 20 drones badly damaged infrastructure, including dams, across at least six regions as multiple waves of air alerts rang out for hours in areas including the capital, Kyiv.
The national power company, Ukrenerho, told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service that the attacks have caused a significant shortage of electricity in the power grid and that blackouts for consumers might be necessary if emergency electricity imports couldn't make up the gap.
Ukrenerho head Volodymyr Kudrytskiy said the emergency imports from Europe had helped "stabilize and balance" the grid but that "this may not be enough."
If consumption rose, he warned, "we will have to resort to disconnecting consumers as a last resort." He warned the risk was especially high during the peak evening hours between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. and urged Ukrainians to "try to avoid it or if you consume electricity [do it] sparingly and economically."
Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko called it "another massive attack on our energy industry" that spanned six regions.
He said power-generation and transmission facilities had been attacked in the Poltava, Kirovohrad, Zaporizhzhya, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Vinnytsya regions.
Russia's Defense Ministry later said it had hit "military and energy" targets in Ukraine with smart weapons including its hypersonic Kinzhal missiles and drones.
"In response to the Kyiv regime's attempt to damage Russian energy facilities, this morning the armed forces of the Russian Federation launched a group strike...against energy facilities and enterprises of Ukraine's military-industrial complex," Moscow was quoted as saying.
Ukrenerho said "Russians have launched a new massive attack on thermal and hydroelectric power plants."
The military administration head in the central Poltava district, Filip Pronin, said a fire had broken out after a drone strike on a power infrastructure facility.
The head of the military administration in the southern Zaporizhzhya region, which hosts Europe's largest nuclear plant, said the Russian bombardment there targeted "critical and civil infrastructure facilities."
In Lviv, in western Ukraine, the governor said a Russian strike had hit critical energy infrastructure in the Stryhi district and a power-generation plant in the Chervonohrad district.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said via Telegram that the Russian attacks had employed at least 50 missiles and 20 drones.
He noted that they took place early on the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation that the United Nations declared to honor those who lost their lives in World War II.
"The whole world must clearly understand who is who," Zelenskiy wrote, before equating Russian aggression against his country to Nazi Germany's actions to spark that war.
Russia has frequently targeted power and energy infrastructure with air attacks since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
An attack in March marked one of the most intense of those bombardments since the war began, including a strike on Ukraine's largest hydroelectric power plant, DniproHEP in Zaporizhzhya that did serious damage.
Russia's Defense Ministry also claimed on May 8 that its troops had captured two frontline villages in Ukraine -- Kyslivka in the Kharkiv region and Novokalynove in the Donetsk region -- but there was no acknowledgement by the Ukrainian side and RFE/RL could not verify the claim.
