By Dan Peleschuk
LVIV, Ukraine/KYIV (Reuters) -Russia rained missiles and drones on Ukraine in a mass overnight attack, officials said on Sunday, killing at least five people and damaging civilian infrastructure including energy facilities across numerous regions.
Moscow has stepped up attacks particularly on Ukraine’s energy grid and gas production sites in recent weeks as the fourth winter of war approaches, and as diplomatic efforts to end the fighting have stalled.
Four of the victims in the overnight attacks were family members killed when their residential building in the western region of Lviv bordering Poland was destroyed, local prosecutors said.
An industrial park in Lviv’s regional capital was also set ablaze and parts of the city had been left without power, said mayor Andriy Sadovyi, who had urged residents early on Sunday to stay inside as authorities battled multiple fires.
ATTACK LARGEST OF WAR ON LVIV, GOVERNOR SAYS
A Reuters correspondent heard explosions booming across the dark morning sky as air defences engaged targets from several directions.
The attack on Lviv was the largest of the war on the Lviv region, said governor Maksym Kozytskyi, adding it involved 140 drones and 23 missiles.
In the village outside Lviv where the family members were killed, rescue workers dug through heaps of rubble. Only the foundation of their building remained.
Volodymyr Hutnyk, a local official, said 10 other nearby homes were damaged beyond repair.
In southeastern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia, one person was killed and 10 others wounded in a combined strike that left more than 73,000 customers without power, said governor Ivan Fedorov.
Service had been restored to more than 20,000 by early afternoon, he said.
Civilian infrastructure was also damaged in the regions of Ivano-Frankivsk, Vinnytsia, Chernihiv, Kherson, Kharkiv and Odesa, said Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.
Ukraine’s energy ministry said energy facilities had been damaged in Zaporizhzhia and the northern Chernihiv region. Ukrainian state gas and oil company Naftogaz said Russia had struck and damaged gas infrastructure, but did not offer any details.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Sunday its forces had struck Ukrainian military-industrial facilities as well as gas and energy infrastructure overnight.
“Another deliberate act of terror against civilians,” Svyrydenko wrote on X. “Moscow continues to strike homes, schools, and energy facilities — proving that destruction remains its only strategy.”
POLAND SCRAMBLES JETS TO ENSURE AIR SAFETY
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russian forces had fired more than 50 missiles and nearly 500 drones.
NATO member Poland said it scrambled aircraft early on Sunday to ensure its air safety.
“Polish and allied aircraft are operating in our airspace, while ground-based air defence and radar reconnaissance systems have been brought to the highest state of readiness,” Poland’s operational command said in a post on X.
Eastern-flank NATO members are on high alert after Poland shot down suspected Russian drones in its airspace in September and drone sightings and air incursions, including in Copenhagen and Munich, have led to chaos in European aviation.
Lithuania’s airport in Vilnius was closed for several hours overnight after reports of a possible series of balloons heading towards the airport late on Saturday.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne, Andriy Perun in Lviv and Dan Peleschuk in Kyiv; Writing by Dan Peleschuk; Editing by Jamie Freed, Lincoln Feast, William Maclean)