Russia launches ‘one of the largest’ aerial attacks on cities and power grids across Ukraine, Zelensky says

Russia launched a “massive” missile and drone attack aimed at energy infrastructure across Ukraine overnight into Monday, Ukrainian officials said, killing at least four people and causing power outages in several cities.

The nationwide strikes used “more than 100 missiles of various types and around 100 Shahed drones,” Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelensky said, calling it “one of the largest attacks” in more than two-and-a-half years of war.

Ukraine’s air force said it detected dozens of missiles and drones targeting almost all regions of the country, from the frontline eastern regions of Kharkiv and Dnipro to the southern port city of Odesa, as well as the capital, Kyiv.

“Russian terrorists have once again targeted energy infrastructure,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal wrote Monday on Telegram. At least 15 regions were targeted by a combination of drones, cruise missiles and hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, he said.

Ukraine’s national energy company, Ukrenergo, has been forced to implement emergency power cuts to stabilize the system, Shmyhal said. Power outages have been recorded in several cities, including Kyiv and Dnipro, according to Serhii Kovalenko, chief executive of the Yasno energy company.

Ukraine had been bracing for a major Russian attack for weeks, in response to Kyiv’s shock incursion into the border region of Kursk – the first foreign invasion of Russia since World War II. Ahead of Ukraine’s Independence Day on Saturday, the US Embassy in Kyiv had warned of an increased risk of Russian drone and missile attacks.

The overnight assault came hours after Ukraine’s foreign ministry called on Belarus to withdraw what it described as a “significant” buildup of Belarusian forces and equipment at their shared border. Kyiv also reported that former Wagner mercenaries were among the troops at the border and urged Minsk “not to make tragic mistakes for their country under Moscow’s pressure.”

Throughout the war, Russia has repeatedly targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, attempting to plunge its citizens into darkness and use freezing winter temperatures as a weapon of war. After Monday’s attack, Ukraine’s Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said “the energy sector is in the crosshairs” and the extent of the damage was being investigated.

Deaths have been reported in the Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Volyn and Zhytomyr regions, according to Ukrainian authorities. At least five people were injured in the central Poltava region when an industrial facility was hit, according to its regional military chief.

CNN teams in Kyiv and Dnipro heard several explosions overnight.

In Kyiv, the head of the city military administration said air defenses were working in the region and the outskirts of the capital and advised people to stay in shelters. In Kharkiv, emergency services were working at an undisclosed number of sites targeted in the attacks, according to its regional military head.

Although Kyiv’s Western allies have provided Ukraine with vast amounts of military equipment, they have placed strict conditions on how this can be used. Fearing Russian escalation, Western countries have prohibited Ukraine from using the weapons it has been given to strike missile and drone launch sites deep inside Russia, meaning Kyiv has to rely mostly on its air defenses to stem Moscow’s attacks.

Following Monday’s strikes, Ukrainian officials once again asked their allies to allow them to strike deeper into Russia.

“Every leader, every one of our partners, knows the decisive actions required to end this war justly. Ukraine cannot be constrained in its long-range capabilities when the terrorists face no such limitations,” Zelensky said.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, Dmytro Kuleba, also made two requests of Kyiv’s allies: “First, affirming Ukraine’s long-range strikes on all legitimate military targets on Russian territory. Second, agreeing to use partners’ air defense capabilities to shoot down missiles and drones close to their airspace.”

The widespread aerial assault comes two days after a Russian strike on a hotel in the Donetsk region killed a British safety adviser and wounded two journalists.

Ryan Evans, a former soldier, had been working with Reuters since 2022 and advised its journalists on safety around the world including in Ukraine, Israel and at the Paris Olympics, the news agency said.

Lights were out in many parts of Kyiv on Monday morning, with residents saying they lost power after hearing several loud explosions.

“There is nowhere to go and to hide,” Katerina, 35, told CNN by phone on Monday.

She had recently left the city with her child to avoid shelling and is now living without power or water on the capital’s outskirts.

“The explosions were so powerful that the house was shaking and the windows were shaking,” she said. “After four or five explosions, my husband and I decided to wake up the baby and go outside. Since the house was not new and there was no shelter or cellar to hide in, it was not safe to stay inside, because of the shrapnel from the windows.”

Anna, who lives on the right bank of Kyiv, woke up to an air-raid alarm followed by explosions.

“The bulk of the missiles were shot down in the region, but even from there I could hear the sounds of explosions and the work of the air defense. My friends from other parts of the city wrote that their electricity and water were cut off,” she said.

In Kyiv metro station, which has been used throughout the war as an air-raid shelter, residents told CNN how they had woken in fear to the sound of sirens.

“I woke up from explosions and immediately came to the subway,” Dmytro, 18, told CNN. “It was scary to hear the sound of explosions. Kyiv hasn’t been shelled for a long period.”

The latest Russian bombardment also comes as Ukrainian forces occupy a pocket of Russian territory in the border region of Kursk and as Kyiv carries out its own aerial attacks on targets deep inside Russia.

On Monday, Russia said its air defenses had destroyed 20 drones launched from Ukraine overnight, including nine over the Saratov region, three over Kursk and two each over the Belgorod, Bryansk and Tula regions.

On Sunday, Belgorod’s governor said five civilians were killed and 12 others wounded in shelling.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday said his forces had advanced up to 3 kilometers (nearly 2 miles) in Kursk and taken control of two more settlements.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, Russian ground forces are inching toward the key eastern city of Pokrovsk, which could become the next major battleground of the war.

Pokrovsk is a strategic target for Moscow and Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear that his goal is to seize all of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Pokrovsk sits on a key supply road that connects it with other military hubs and forms the backbone of Ukrainian defenses in the part of Donetsk that is still under Kyiv’s control.

In his address Sunday, Zelensky said that in Donetsk, “The most attention is on Novohrodivka and Vodiane, where the assaults are most intense. I am grateful to all our units for their resilience.”

CNN’s Michelle Velez and Chris Liakos contributed reporting.