Naftogaz said Russian forces had launched the largest strike on its gas production facilities since the invasion in 2022, causing \u201ccritical\u201d damage.<\/p>\n
\u201cFacilities in Kharkiv and Poltava regions were hit with 35 missiles, many of them ballistic, along with 60 drones,\u201d the company said in a statement. \u201cSome were successfully intercepted. Unfortunately, not all.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Russian defence ministry said yesterday that its forces had carried out massive overnight strikes on Ukrainian military-industrial facilities, and on gas and energy infrastructure.<\/p>\n
The strikes came just two days after Naftogaz chief executive Sergii Koretskyi announced that the company would import approximately 500 million cubic meters of liquefied natural gas from the US via European countries.<\/p>\n
Russia has stepped up its attacks on Ukraine\u2019s energy sector as the fourth winter of war approaches, and they have already triggered prolonged blackouts in several regions.<\/p>\n
A drone attack on the northern Kyiv and Chernihiv regions on Wednesday knocked out power to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant \u2013 including the new containment vessel erected in 2016 to keep radiation from leaking \u2013 for three hours.<\/p>\n
\nA game-changer for Russia<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Seeking retaliation, Kyiv\u2019s troops have also stepped up deep strikes on oil refineries deep in Russia in recent months, prompting fuel shortages in some regions.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, Ukrainian drones hit Orsknefteorgsintez refinery in the Russian city of Orsk, near the border with Kazakhstan, causing fires.<\/p>\n
The attack came as a report claimed that Russia appears to have upgraded its ballistic missiles in order to bypass US-made Patriot air defence systems in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The upgrades likely involve Russia\u2019s Iskander-M and Kinzhal missiles, which have ranges of up to 500km and 480km respectively. These missiles follow a standard flight path before suddenly diving steeply, making interception difficult, Ukrainian and Western officials told the Financial Times. <\/p>\n
One former Ukrainian official described it as a \u201cgame-changer for Russia\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ukraine\u2019s missile interception rate has dropped sharply in recent months, from 37pc in August to just 6pc in September, the FT reported, citing Ukrainian Air Force data.<\/p>\n
Russia targeted at least four drone manufacturing sites near Kyiv earlier this year, causing major damage, according to the officials.<\/p>\n
The Patriot air defence systems are the only ones in Kyiv\u2019s arsenal capable of shooting down Russian ballistic missiles, according to the FT. They are a vital element of Ukraine\u2019s layered defences, which have sought to shield cities, including Kyiv, from large-scale strikes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Naftogaz said Russian forces had launched the largest strike on its gas production facilities since the invasion in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,356,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,550,22129,7,8,551,1543,2263,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-103442","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-russia","20":"tag-the-independent","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories","23":"tag-ukraine","24":"tag-usa","25":"tag-vladimir-putin","26":"tag-world","27":"tag-world-news","28":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}