Ukraine energy company says its facilities seriously damaged after 13 Russian strikes in a week

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia attacked facilities of Ukraine’s Naftogaz Group 13 times over the last week and has targeted it almost 300 times this year, the state energy company said Monday.

Russia repeatedly has battered the Ukrainian power grid since its all-out invasion more than four years ago. Moscow hopes to sap Ukraine’s will to fight by denying civilians light, heating and running water during the bitter winter months.

Ukrainian officials, who say Russia is “weaponizing winter,” fear Moscow will pursue its campaign through the coming winter too.

Russian drones and missiles struck facilities in several regions of the country, with one asset hit multiple times during the week, Naftogaz said, reporting serious damage to equipment and production capacity. No employees were hurt, the company said.

DTEK Group, a coal mining and power production company that says it is the largest private investor in Ukraine’s energy sector, also said a Russian attack started a fire at one of its mines, killing a 52-year-old man.

With troops largely bogged down by drones and robots along the roughly 780-mile front line, both Russia and Ukraine are expanding their aerial campaigns and devising new long-range weapons.

Ukrainian long-range attacks on Russia killed seven people, while five civilians died in Ukraine after strikes by Moscow’s forces, officials said Monday as they collated overnight attacks.

With the Russian capital now within range of Ukrainian drones that regularly attack the region, organizers canceled a large military music festival due to be held on central Moscow’s Red Square starting Friday.

The organizers of the Spasskaya Tower International Military Music Festival said on social media Monday that the event was postponed until next year because of reasons beyond their control.

In May, authorities significantly scaled back Russia’s annual Victory Day celebrations on Red Square for the first time in nearly two decades. Officials put the move down to the “current operational situation.”

Ukraine depended heavily on foreign military aid after Russia’s full-scale invasion of February 2022 but gradually has increased its domestically produced firepower, firing a salvo of more than 800 long-range drones at Russia on Sunday.

Ukraine also has successfully targeted depots owned by Wildberries, Russia’s main online retailer, as far as 1,240 miles from Ukraine’s border.

Russian forces increasingly have hit apartment blocks, ports, schools and hospitals, among other urban targets, killing close to 17,000 civilians, according to the United Nations. The death toll of 437 Ukrainian civilians in July was 70% higher than the same month last year, it said last week, as Russia’s barrages intensified.

Russia has exploited Ukraine’s severe shortage of U.S.-made Patriot air defense interceptors, the only way of countering ballistic missiles.

But Kyiv is swiftly innovating, with Ukraine developing its own ballistic missile to hit back at Russia and working with European countries on developing more anti-ballistic air defenses.

Arhirova writes for the Associated Press.