Russia Targets Ukraine Hydro Power, Romania Finds Drone Pieces

Ukraine’s leader said Kremlin forces are attempting to damage hydro power plants, while Romania has found drone fragments near its border with Ukraine from recent Russian air attacks, adding to concerns that Kremlin troops may inflict damage on the territory of a NATO member.

Author of the article:

Bloomberg News

Olesia Safronova and Irina Vilcu

Published Mar 29, 2024 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 3 minute read

8[7z9nib[txw0tfgrptqcdc4_media_dl_1.png Source: Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) — Ukraine’s leader said Kremlin forces are attempting to damage hydro power plants, while Romania has found drone fragments near its border with Ukraine from recent Russian air attacks, adding to concerns that Kremlin troops may inflict damage on the territory of a NATO member.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met with country’s top commanders on Friday and said the Dnistrovska plant, near Ukraine’s border with Moldova, and the Kanivska facility in central Ukraine had been among the targets of Moscow’s overnight missile and drone barrage.

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Russia wants to repeat the ecological disaster seen in the Kherson region last summer, when its forces blew up the Kakhovka dam, creating massive flooding, he said.

Read more: Dam Breach Remakes Ukraine Battlefield as Vast Reservoir Drains

“Now not only Ukraine is under threat, but also Moldova, as the water will not stop in front of the border posts,” Zelenskiy said.

In Romania, the latest drone debris was located late Thursday and an investigation has begun, the nation’s defense ministry said on its website.

Local media said local residents heard a loud explosion blast but no injuries were reported. Romania and Poland, both members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, have said their airspace has been violated or territory struck with debris as a result of Russian air attacks on Ukraine.

Russia has stepped up those strikes in recent weeks. It has repeatedly bombed Ukraine’s second-biggest city, Kharkiv, near their shared border, and targeted the capital, Kyiv, as well as power, energy and port facilities across the country, including the far west, in an attempt to cripple the economy.

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Ukraine’s military overnight shot down 58 Shahed-type drones and 26 missiles, including cruise and ballistic, launched from Russia and occupied Crimea, Air Defense Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said Friday on Telegram.

At least five civilians were injured in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, the General Prosecutor’s Office said, with private homes sustaining damage.

“The combined attack with missiles and combat drones has damaged the power grid,” Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said Friday on social media. “The operation of hospitals, maternity wards, schools, kindergartens, is under threat.”

Russia’s defense ministry, in a statement, said it had used Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, among other projectiles, to target energy facilities and air defenses sites in Ukraine.

Read more: Ukraine’s No. 2 City Hit by Russian Guided Bomb

Power generation plants were the main targets of the overnight strikes, from the western Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv regions close to the Romanian and Polish borders, to the central Cherkasy, Kirovohrad and Dnipropetrovsk regions, the energy ministry said on its website.

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“Energy specialists and rescue teams are already working” on repairs, Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Facebook.

DTEK, the country’s largest private energy company, said three of its thermal plants were also hit, seriously damaging equipment and injuring an engineer. Since the full-scale invasion over two years ago, DTEK plants have been hit more than 160 times, the company said on Telegram. It didn’t specify which ones were hit Friday.

Romania has been hit by downed drones at least five other times since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, as Kremlin troops target port infrastructure in Ukraine’s Odesa region on the Black Sea coast and along the Danube River. The facilities are essential to Ukraine’s exports of wheat and other agricultural products.

Read more: Russian Missile Enters Polish Air Space, Kyiv Strikes Ships

On Sunday, fellow NATO member Poland said a Russian cruise missile entered its airspace for 39 seconds, the third such incident since President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine two years ago.

Polish and allied NATO aircraft were operating again on Friday to “ensure the safety of Polish airspace and monitor the situation on an ongoing basis,” Poland’s military said on social media.

Update with Zelenskiy comment in 6th paragraph

—With assistance from Andra Timu and Slav Okov.

(Updates with Zelenskiy comments on hydro power plants from second paragraph.)

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