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weapons that cost well over $300mn, according to reports.
Ukrainian air defence units managed to destroy 92 Russian aerial targets, but an increasing number of Russian missiles are getting through to hit their targets as Ukraine starts to run low on air defence ammo. Blackouts not seen for about a year were back as important power plants were struck and suffered major damage.
Emergency power outages are taking place in a number of Ukrainian regions after reports of damage to power generating facilities, the Ukrainian energy holding DTEK and regional authorities reported.
Blackouts have been reported in eight regions, including the Dnipro Region and in the Kyiv-controlled areas of the Donetsk People’s Republic, as well as "stabilisation outages" in the Odesa Region.
According to the regional authorities, over 110,000 residents of the Poltava Region will be disconnected "to balance the power grid”, while in the Sumy Region emergency cut-off plans will be implemented in several districts.
It appears that the Kremlin is trying to take advantage of Kyiv’s increasingly dire financial state after the US ran out of money for Ukraine in January and halted supplies of badly needed weapons and ammo. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed to Western leaders last week to urgently send more munitions, but the Ministry of Finance (MinFin) admitted last week that Ukraine has only received 10% of the arms and cash promised last month at the 20th Ramstein meeting.
The barrage began on March 21, hitting cities across the country. A Russian missile strike on the city of Zaporizhzhia on March 22 claimed the lives of three people: a father and daughter aged 35 and 8, and a 62-year-old trolleybus driver who was driving along the dam of the Dnipro hydroelectric power plant (HPP), the Kyiv Independent reports.
The target was the Dnipro HPP, a major source of power, which was struck by eight missiles and suffered extensive damage.
Ukraine’s power stations targeted
Ukraine is currently suffering from the most intense missile and drone attack since the start of the war more than two years ago – even more intense than the first barrage launched in January designed to run Ukrainian’s stock of defensive missiles down, a tactic that now seems to be paying dividends for Russia.
Russian forces are exploiting Ukraine's air defence shortages to plunge the country into darkness and destroy the country's energy grid in the largest strike since the start of the conflict, according to a report from Institute for the Study
10 UKRAINE Country Report April 2024 www.intellinews.com