KYIV, Ukraine – Russia unleashed one of its most devastating attacks against Ukraine’s electric sector on Friday, an aerial assault it said was retaliation for recent strikes inside Russia and which could signal an escalation of the war just days after President Vladimir Putin cemented his grip on power in a preordained election.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been urging Western allies for weeks to provide it with additional air-defense systems and ammunition, a period in which $60 billion in U.S. aid has been held up by divisions in Congress. Russia has made progress on the battlefield in recent months against exhausted Ukrainian troops struggling with a shortage of manpower and ammunition along the front line that stretches over 1,000 kilometers .
Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, head of the national utility Ukrenergo, described Friday´s barrage as the largest assault on Ukraine´s energy infrastructure since the full-scale war began.