Russia Launches 'Massive' Strikes, Hits Power Stations, Psychiatric Hospital

A nurse cleans the bed linen of a patient who was injured after a Russian attack on a psychiatric hospital in Kharkiv on April 27.

Ukraine said Russia had launched a massive attack overnight targeting energy installations, while a Russian oil refinery said it had suspended operations following a drone strike.

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DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, said its four thermal power stations had been hit.

"The enemy again massively shelled the Ukrainian energy facilities," DTEK said in a statement. "The company's equipment was seriously damaged. At this very moment, energy workers are trying to eliminate the consequences of the attack."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy again appealed for quick delivery of further air defense weapons from Western allies after the attacks on crucial infrastructure.

"Terror should always lose, and anyone who helps us stand against Russian terror is a true defender of life," he said.

In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said Russia’s attack on Ukraine’s energy sector had particularly targeted sites that supply gas to EU countries.

"The main target was the energy sector, various facilities in the industry, both electricity and gas transit facilities. In particular, gas facilities that are crucial to ensuring safe delivery to the European Union," he said.

Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said the Russian strikes targeted the Dnipropetrovsk region in central Ukraine and the western regions of Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk.

Halushchenko said one energy worker had been injured. DTEK also said there were casualties but provided no other details.

In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, a psychiatric hospital was damaged and one person was wounded in a Russian missile strike, officials said.

Oleh Synyehubov, the head of the Kharkiv regional military administration, said a 53-year-old woman was injured in what he described as a strike by a Russian cruise missile.

Synyehubov said at the time of the attack about 60 patients and five staff had been in the building.

Photos from the scene showed a huge crater on the grounds of the facility and patients taking shelter in corridors.

Ukrainian air defenses shot down 21 of 34 Russian missiles fired in an overnight attack, the commander of the Ukrainian Air Force said on April 27.

Mykola Oleschuk said Ukrainian fighter planes, air defense missile units, mobile fire groups, and means of radio-electronic warfare were involved in repelling the Russian missile strikes.

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Russian Missile Hits Ukrainian Health-Care Compound

Over the past month, Russia’s military has increased its targeting of Ukrainian power infrastructure, attacking thermal and hydropower stations and other energy infrastructure almost daily.

Ukrainian officials have said the country has lost about 80 percent of its thermal generation and about 35 percent of its hydropower capacity, prompting the government to introduce scheduled blackouts in several regions.

In Russia, meanwhile, an oil refinery in Russia's Krasnodar region has suspended operations after a suspected drone attack early on April 27, local officials said.

"The work of the plant has been partially suspended. Exactly 10 UAVs (drones) flew into the plant. There was a strong fire. There may be hidden damage," Eduard Trudnev, the security director of Slavyansk ECO Group, which operates the plant, was quoted as saying.

A post on the Telegram messaging app showed what appeared to be a large explosion at the Slavyansk oil refinery.

Ukraine, which rarely comments on its targeting of Russian sites, said nothing publicly on the drone strikes.

Ukrainian officials on April 27 reported that Russia had reinforced its troops around the eastern Ukrainian town of Ocheretyne in an effort to take the embattled settlement, but Kyiv insisted that its forces were holding off the Kremlin’s offensive there.

A spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern command said government forces had the situation "under control" and that Ukrainian troops had managed to shell areas taken by Russian forces, blocking their advance ahead of a planned effort to “kick them out.”

Battlefield claims on both sides cannot immediately be verified.

In Chasiv Yar -- another town under direct Russian assault -- Ukrainian officials said the Kremlin’s forces had not entered the municipality, which had a prewar population of about 12,500.

Zelenskiy said in an interview on April 21 that Russia wants to occupy Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region before May 9, the day that Russia celebrates as Victory Day to mark the defeat of Germany in World War II.

With reporting by Reuters