Moscow announces the interception of 20 Ukrainian marches and Kiev warns its citizens of an electricity crisis

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Yesterday, Monday, Moscow announced the interception of 20 Ukrainian drones in the south of the country, at a time when Kiev warned its citizens of further power outages following a large-scale Russian attack on energy production facilities in the country.

Alexei Smironov, the governor of the Kursk region, said via the Telegram application that Russian air defense units intercepted 20 Ukrainian drones in the region located in the south of the country on the border with Ukraine, which attacked 4 villages in his region using attack drones and helicopters, according to him.

In the Belgorod region, to the southeast, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced that air defense units had shot down "several airborne targets." The roofs of some homes were damaged.

Ukraine regularly launches attacks on Russian border regions, angering the Kremlin. President Vladimir Putin said the attacks prompted Russian forces to move last month into northern parts of the Kharkiv region to establish a "buffer zone."

The Russian army says it has taken control of about a dozen villages, but Ukrainian officials point out that their forces still control 70% of Vovchansk, a major town 5 kilometers from the border.

Ukrainian electricity crisis

In addition, Ukrainian officials said that over the weekend, Russian forces targeted power plants in 5 regions and damaged two other thermal power plants, in an attack with more than 100 drones and missiles.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Energy announced on social media that “after 6 massive attacks on the electricity grid, there is a significant shortage of electrical energy.” It also noted that its engineers are working to repair the damage, but the network is still vulnerable.

The ministry explained in a statement on Telegram, “The outage periods may increase, and the electricity supply was cut off in an emergency manner in a number of areas, the day before yesterday, Sunday.”

Russia has launched hundreds of air attacks on energy production facilities in Ukraine since the start of the two-year-old war, causing severe damage to energy infrastructure. Oleksandr Kharchenko, executive director of the Energy Industry Research Center in Kiev, warned during a press conference on Monday that these attacks impose on Ukrainians the need to adapt.

“All we can do is get used to the fact that this is the normal state of things, for at least the next two years,” he said. But he ruled out the "end" of the sector, stressing that the country's energy infrastructure will survive despite the outages.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushenko announced an increase in electricity prices by more than 60%, and the decision took effect last week, pointing out that the reconstruction plan will cost “enormous efforts and funds.”

He said in a statement, “Increasing the tariff is a difficult but necessary step.” It was previously estimated that repairing the damage to Ukrainian power production plants would cost about $1 billion.

On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine, requiring its end to Kiev’s “renunciation” of plans to join military entities, which prompted capitals, led by Washington, to impose severe economic sanctions on Moscow.