American Marconi Wireless News - Russian attack batters Ukraine energy grid, kills 7-year-old

The Russian attack, which combined hundreds of drones and nearly three dozen missiles, disrupted power supplies in nine regions and plunged entire districts of Kyiv into darkness.

AFP journalists in the capital heard several loud explosions overnight and experienced blackouts and water supply disruptions in different parts of the city.

Workers restored power to around 270,000 households in Kyiv by the afternoon, but parts of the east and south of the country remained cut off, according to Ukraine's energy minister.

"Around 3 am, we heard a terrible rumbling. All the windows in the apartment were completely shattered," Kyiv resident Yevgeniya Charchiyan told AFP after the strikes.

"Thank God there was no fire, everyone is alive and well, but the apartment is currently uninhabitable," she added.

Another resident, Viktoria, told AFP that she was expecting a "difficult" winter and had stocked up on power banks.

"It's impossible to get used to this," she told AFP.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Russia's latest strikes a "cynical and calculated attack", and urged allies to respond with concrete measures.

Diplomatic efforts to end the three-and-a-half-year war have stalled in recent months.

At least 214 civilians were killed across the country in September, UN rights monitors said in a report published Friday.

The Kremlin has escalated aerial attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities and rail systems over recent weeks, building on earlier bombing campaigns over the previous three winters that left millions without heating in frigid temperatures.

Russia said its forces had hit energy sites supplying power to Ukraine's defence industry.

The Ukrainian air force said the Russian barrage comprised 465 drones and 32 missiles, adding that 405 drones and 15 missiles were downed.

A source in Ukraine's energy sector told AFP that the intensity of attacks was higher compared to last year, and that cloudy weather overnight had allowed drones to evade Ukrainian air defence systems.

- 'Didn't sleep at all' -

Kyiv's mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said Russian forces had targeted "critical infrastructure".

Ukrainian police said some 33 people had been wounded in Kyiv and other regions.

Russia also hit the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia, killing a seven-year-old boy, according to Ivan Fedorov, the head of the regional military administration.

The attacks caused outages to a "significant number of customers" mainly in the centre and the east of the country, the energy ministry said.

"This was one of the largest concentrated strikes against energy facilities," Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said.

It was the fourth attack in a week against the facilities of Ukraine's biggest private electricity provider, DTEK, its CEO Maxim Timchenko said.

Russian military blogger Alexander Kots said that two power plants in Kyiv, along with six others in different regions, were hit. AFP could not independently confirm his claim.

Russian attacks this year have already strained Ukrainian gas infrastructure, Kyiv has said, and more strikes could force the country to ramp up imports.

A Ukrainian delegation led by Svyrydenko is expected to visit the United States early next week to discuss, among other topics, energy and air defence under intensifying Russian strikes.

The foreign ministry meanwhile said the overnight attack fell on the third anniversary of Russia's first large-scale attack on energy facilities, months after Moscow invaded in February 2022.

Trump said Thursday that Washington and NATO allies were "stepping up the pressure" to end the war in Ukraine.

But the Kremlin said that momentum towards reaching a peace deal had largely vanished.

A.Mahlangu--AMWN