Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 37 of the 88 missiles fired overnight and 55 of 63 drones.The strikes left around 700,000 consumers without electricity in the northeastern Kharkiv region, governor Oleg Synegubov said.”The goal is not just to damage, but to try again, like last year, to cause a large-scale failure of the country’s energy system,” said energy minister German Galushchenko.Last winter Russia launched a daily barrage of aerial attacks on Ukraine’s power grid, plunging millions into darkness and leaving them without heating in sub-zero temperatures for hours.But the country’s energy network has largely held up this year.Despite “temporary” blackouts being put in place in some regions, Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said Friday: “The situation in the energy sector is under control, and there is no need for blackouts across the country.”Emergency electricity was being supplied from Romania, Slovakia and Poland, Galushchenko said.’Extremely dangerous situation’ One of the strikes Friday severed one of two power lines supplying the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in southeast Ukraine, energy minister Galushchenko said.The facility, Europe’s largest nuclear energy site, was seized by Russian troops in the first days of the war but is powered by Ukrainian lines.”This situation is extremely dangerous and risks sparking an emergency situation”, said Ukraine’s atomic energy operator Energoatom.The plant has suffered multiple blackouts since the beginning of the war, falling back on emergency diesel generators and safety systems.”In case of their failure, a threat of a nuclear and radiation accident will emerge,” said Energoatom.The International Atomic Energy Agency, which is monitoring the situation at the site, said a back-up power line was still working.A Russian missile also hit a trolleybus at the Dnipro hydroelectric station, officials said.Photos on social media showed a fire raging on the dam and the burnt-out carcass of the vehicle.In Russia, a woman was killed and others wounded in a strike on Friday on Russia’s Belgorod, said the governor of the region along the border with Ukraine, where Kyiv has stepped up attacks.And Moscow’s FSB security service said it had arrested seven pro-Ukrainian partisans in the capital, the latest in a flurry of similar cases.
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