Russia's Infrastructure Attacks Could Impact Ukraine's Neighbors: Official

Russia's latest attacks on Ukraine's infrastructure could impact the Eastern European nation's neighbors, a key Ukrainian energy official said on Tuesday.

Nearly nine months after Russia invaded Ukraine, Moscow has continued to ramp up its attacks against Ukrainian infrastructure in recent weeks, targeting cities across Ukraine including the capital city of Kyiv.

Despite the vast size of the Russian military, its troops have struggled to achieve substantial gains in Ukraine. Meanwhile, throughout the fall, Kyiv has retaken control of formerly occupied territories, most recently recapturing control of Kherson, a major city in the nation's southern region.

Concerns about attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure have grown as winter approaches, and these attacks threaten to leave millions of Ukrainians without power throughout the winter, which could see dangerously low temperatures.

On Tuesday, Russia hit Ukraine with its latest attack on its infrastructure, which Ukraine's Energy Minister German Galushchenko described as the "most massive shelling" since the war began on February 24, 2022.

"Today again Russia strikes large-scale missile strikes on energy facilities. This is the most massive shelling of the energy system since the beginning of the war," he wrote in a Facebook post. "This attack can have an impact not only on the energy system of Ukraine, but also on the energy systems of some of our neighbors."

Galushchenko said the attack hit Ukraine's generators and electricity transmission system, describing the attack as "another attempt of terrorist revenge" in which Russia tried to "inflict maximum damage on our energy system on the eve of winter."

One Ukrainian neighbor reported outages due to the attack.

Moldovan Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development Andrei Spînu wrote in a Telegram post that the Russian attacks led to power outages across the country. The lines did not suffer damage due to the attack but were disconnected due to a safety measure.

"As a result of Russia's bombing of the Ukrainian energy system in the last hour, one of the power lines that provide electricity transport for our country was disconnected in automatic mode (automatic load shedding according to frequency). This has led to massive power outages across the country," he wrote.

Moldovan authorities restored power for most of its residents later Tuesday, but Spînu warned that Russian attacks against Ukraine could lead to further outages.

"Russian aggression against Ukraine directly affects our country as well. The risks of power outages remain high. Any bombing by Russia against Ukrainian power plants may lead to a repeat of today's situation," he wrote.

Newsweek reached out to the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy for comment.