KYIV (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia’s attack on his country’s energy sector on Saturday targeted gas facilities critical to supplies to the European Union.
Russia continues to supply gas to the EU via Ukraine under a transit agreement with Russia’s Gazprom (MCX:), which expires in December. Ukraine’s energy minister said last month that Kyiv has no plans to extend or replace the agreement with Moscow, which pays Ukraine to export gas to the EU.
“The main target was the energy sector, various industry facilities, both electricity and gas transportation facilities, in particular those gas facilities that are critical to ensuring safe supplies to the European Union,” Zelensky said in his nightly video message.
Zelensky, who advocates the supply of defensive weapons systems from his international partners, said Ukrainian forces “managed to shoot down some” of 34 Russian missiles of various types.
He did not specify which targets were attacked or whether the missiles hit these targets.
Ukrainian state oil and gas company Naftogaz said Russia attacked its facilities, but no one was hurt and supplies to Ukrainian consumers and customers were not affected.
Maxim Kozitsky, governor of the Lviv region, which borders Poland, said his region had been hit by cruise missiles and Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, although Ukrainian forces shot down three missiles.
According to him, two critical energy infrastructure facilities in the Stryisky and Chervonogradsky districts were damaged and caught fire, but emergency services quickly extinguished the flames.
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Zelensky repeated his previous call for defensive missiles, especially Patriot systems, saying Ukraine needs at least seven defensive systems.
“The trajectories of the missiles and the nature of the strike were calculated by Russian terrorists in such a way as to make the operation of our air defense system as difficult as possible,” he said. “Every missile shot down today is a significant result.”