Russia launched another strike on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure early Monday, hitting a coal enrichment plant owned by Ukraine’s largest private energy company DTEK in central Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, the company reported.
It is the sixth major attack on the company’s coal facilities in the past two months, as Moscow continues to target Ukraine’s energy sector ahead of winter.
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“Emergency crews are working to contain the damage, and no employees were injured,” DTEK reported on Telegram.
Russia is intensifying its efforts to disrupt Ukraine’s energy system ahead of the winter season, aiming to weaken the country’s resilience and strain civilian infrastructure as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaches its fourth year.
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By targeting power plants, coal facilities, and other critical energy assets, Moscow hopes to undermine Ukraine’s capacity to sustain both its population and its war effort throughout the colder months.
On the previous day, Russian forces attacked another DTEK facility in the Dnipropetrovsk region, leaving nearly 200 miners trapped underground.
The attack came almost exactly three years after Moscow first launched its campaign to cripple Ukraine’s power grid – a strategy it has revived each winter in an effort to plunge the country into darkness and cold.
“On the eve of the heating season, the enemy once again struck Ukraine’s energy sector,” DTEK wrote on Telegram.
On Aug. 26, a Russian attack on another DTEK mine killed one worker and injured three others.
On the same day, shelling near the town of Dobropillya cut power to several local mines, temporarily trapping hundreds of miners underground before they were rescued.
Coal remains vital for powering Ukraine’s thermal plants, which supply heat and electricity to millions of homes. After yet another strike on the country’s energy grid on Friday, President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that the Kremlin is seeking to turn Ukrainian territory into “an island of danger and suffering.”
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Natural gas is another critical component of the country’s energy system. Russian attacks have already destroyed more than half of Ukraine’s domestic gas production, forcing Kyiv to spend about €1.9 billion ($2.2 billion) on fuel imports to get through the winter.