Ukraine says energy sector 'under massive enemy attack'

Ukraine's power infrastructure was "under massive enemy attack" on Thursday, the energy minister said, after a countrywide air raid alert was declared due to incoming missiles.

"Once again, the energy sector is under massive enemy attack. Attacks on energy facilities are taking place across Ukraine," German Galushchenko said in a Facebook post.

National power grid operator Ukrenergo had "urgently introduced emergency power cuts", he added, as temperatures across the country dropped to around 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit).

A senior UN official, Rosemary DiCarlo, this month denounced the rise in civilian casualties in the nearly three-year conflict between Ukraine and Russia, noting Moscow's targeting of Ukraine's energy infrastructure may make this winter the "harshest since the start of the war".

Energy provider DTEK said Ukrenergo was introducing emergency power outages in the regions of Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipro and Donetsk.

Ukraine's military said earlier Thursday that an air raid alert had been declared across the country "due to a missile threat" in a message on Telegram.

Missiles were detected headed for Kharkiv, Odesa and eight other regions, according to other messages from the air force.

"Kharkiv, go to the shelters!" it warned.

Oleg Synegubov, head of the Kharkiv region military administration, said on Telegram that three strikes had hit Kharkiv's Kyivskyi district, with no casualties reported so far.

The mayor of Lutsk in northwestern Ukraine, Igor Polishchuk, said that "explosions were heard again" in the city.

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