Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said a Russian missile strike on Tuesday led to the automatic shutdown of several reactors at two power plants in Ukraine, adding that millions of people were without power.
Russia struck cities and energy facilities across Ukraine on Tuesday, killing at least one person and causing widespread power outages. Kyiv said it was its heaviest wave of missile attacks since the nearly nine-month war.
“Today, due to airstrikes, automation disabled several nuclear facilities at two sites – these are calculated consequences; the enemy knows exactly what they are doing,” Zelensky said in an evening video address.
Zelensky did not say which plants were affected but said strikes hit the capital Kyiv, Lviv, Rivne and Volyn in the west, Kharkiv in the northeast, Kryvyi Rih and Poltava in the centre, Odesa and Mykolaiv in the south, and to the north is Zhytomyr.
“Emergency power outages are again occurring in many cities and regions of our country. About 10 million Ukrainians are without electricity,” he said.
On Tuesday, a missile killed two people in Poland near the Ukrainian border, raising concerns that the conflict could spill over into neighbouring countries. However, the origin of the attack remains under investigation.