Viktoriia Skyba, a 29-year-old mother of two, did not have enough time to reach a bomb shelter when Russia attacked her town in what Ukrainian authorities say was the largest attack on Ukraine since the full-scale invasion.

She saw a rocket flying over her house and a large column of smoke rising into the sky, which was the result of the explosions on August 26 near Kyiv in the town of Vyshhorod, where the Kyiv hydroelectric power station is located.

“It was a feeling of being close to death that cannot be put into words,” Skyba told the Kyiv Independent, adding that her children were also “terribly afraid.”

Shortly afterwards, an adviser to the President’s Office said the power plant had been hit in the morning attack. The attack targeted critical infrastructure facilities across Ukraine, resulting in civilian casualties and widespread power outages in the country.

Ukraine is currently struggling to repair its badly damaged energy system, which has suffered waves of Russian attacks since March. It continues to implement regular planned power outages to reduce demand on its energy infrastructure. This latest attack came after the energy situation had improved somewhat and the planned power outages introduced over the summer had largely been lifted.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that 15 of the country’s 24 oblasts were targeted in the attack, “which was aimed primarily at critical civilian infrastructure and our energy system.” According to the State Emergency Service, seven people were killed and 47 injured.

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said infrastructure had been damaged in “several regions” and emergency power outages had been carried out to stabilize the system.

In total, the Ukrainian military registered 236 air targets. The Ukrainian armed forces shot down 102 missiles and 99 drones, said Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk.

When Skyba heard that the power plant had been hit, she immediately thought there had been flooding on the east bank of the Dnipro. Skyba said she was horrified at the thought of no longer being able to visit her parents in Sumy, a city in northeastern Ukraine.

“What to expect next is unknown… I am grateful to our armed forces and our defenders. They are the only hope that something can change in our country,” Skyba added.

Ruslan Kravchenko, head of the Kyiv Oblast Military Administration, reported on national television that the attack had not caused “critical damage” to the power plant. No significant damage to the power plant could be seen from a residential area on a hill above the dam and from the bridge above it.

New emergency blackouts

From the time of the attack until about 6:15 p.m. local time, the bridge was closed to motorists and pedestrians, forcing residents of neighborhoods and villages across the river to wait for hours to get home. One of them was Vasyl Cherniavskyi, a 52-year-old man who works in Vyshhorod.

Cherniavskyi told the Kyiv Independent that he heard the first explosions at his workplace and ran to the nearest bomb shelter when another, even louder explosion rang out. He said it felt like “the ground was shaking beneath his feet.” “We realized it had hit somewhere near us.”

Asked if he feared that another possible attack could destroy the dam, Cherniavskyi, a father of three, replied: “Of course, we are only human.” Despite this fear, he has to keep working, Cherniavskyi said. “When you get used to it (the attacks), you don’t think about it anymore. You do everything automatically.”

Energy officials have not yet released their damage estimates from Monday’s attack, but people across the country are feeling the effects.

Shortly after 9:00 a.m., DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, announced that emergency power cuts had been imposed across Ukraine. In parts of Kyiv, the blackouts also caused disruptions to water supplies, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Residents in some regions of Kyiv reported power outages that lasted most of the day and into the night.

One day before the strikes, the state-owned energy network operator Ukrnenergo announced that no power outages were planned for the following day.

Following the strikes, DTEK announced rolling power outages in the Kyiv, Odessa, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions for the following day to stabilize the grid.

Serhii Kovalenko, chairman of the board of private energy company Yasno, a subsidiary of DTEK, said the impact of the attack on the power grid was “still being determined”.

According to him, on August 27, 50 to 70 percent of the residents of the city of Kyiv and the Dnipropetrovsk region will be without electricity.

‘Not the last such strike’

“We have received all the necessary reports on the energy sector, the current state of the system and the possibility of its restoration. Work continues around the clock,” said President Volodymyr Zelensky in his evening address.

“We have also thoroughly examined the situation regarding protective structures at energy plants and several important decisions have been made on this matter as well.”

A representative of the Energy Ministry declined to answer questions, citing security reasons, and referred the Kyiv Independent to Zelensky’s public statements.

When asked, a spokesman for Ukrenergo said: “The situation following the attack is currently being assessed. Unfortunately, for security reasons, we cannot provide any further information.”

A statement from the Russian Defense Ministry said the Russian military had attacked critical energy infrastructure facilities using high-precision air- and sea-based long-range weapons as well as attack drones.

The targets of the attack were electrical substations in Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, Nikolayev, Kirovohrad and Odessa oblasts, the statement said. While the Russian Defense Ministry claimed all intended targets were hit and gas compression plants in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Kharkiv regions were also damaged, the Ukrainian Air Force said it shot down over 200 of the 236 missiles and drones fired by Russia at the country.

The Kyiv Independent could not confirm the accuracy of either statement.

The attack is further proof that Russia has not deviated from its plans to destroy Ukraine’s energy system, said Roman Nitsovych, head of research at the Ukrainian energy think tank DiXi Group.

“I don’t think this is the last strike of this kind against energy infrastructure,” he added.

Monday’s attacks showed once again that Ukraine needs to expand its power plants and that its allies need to strengthen their air defense systems, Nitsovych said.

“If we allow the power grid to be destroyed, Western governments will face another wave of migration, especially in winter, a very fragile time,” Nitsovych said. “We already know that we need to reassess the state of the power grid and how it functions in winter.”

Russia is attacking Ukraine with over 100 missiles and around 100 drones, says Selenskyj

On the morning of August 26, Russia launched a massive missile and drone attack on Ukraine, killing seven people, injuring nearly 50 others, and once again targeting the country’s energy infrastructure.