Kurakhove power plant goes offline as Russia targets Ukraine’s energy infrastructure
- 25 November, 08:11
Last week Russia launched a large-scale attack on power plants across Ukraine with the use of missiles and drones in another attempt to destroy Ukraine’s energy and electricity-generation infrastructure. As a result of the attack, the operation of Kurakhove thermal power plant in eastern Donetsk region was stooped as of November 24, Ukrainian media reported.
According to media reports, the attack was launched with KAB laser-guided bomb and resulted in the complete disruption of the work of the thermal power plant.
"The thermal power plant in Kurakhove has been left without any pipes. First, one was destroyed, then the rest. The plant is completely gone. Russia is turning Donbas into a wasteland," Ukrainian journalist Denys Kazanskyi wrote in Telegram messaging app.
The video of the moment of the strike on the power plant was shared by Serhii Leshchenko, Advisor to the Head of the Ukrainian President's Office on November On Friday, November 22.
Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has been regularly attacked since Russia’s full-fledged invasion of the country in February 2022. Over the course of 2022-2023, Russia destroyed or occupied about half of Ukraine’s power generation capacity. In addition, around half of the large network substations were damaged by missiles and drones. The occupation of Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is Europe’s largest NPP, reduced available Ukrainian power generation capacity by 6 gigawatts. Prior to the war in 2022, nuclear power amounted to half of the country’s electricity production, followed by coal-fired plants at 23% and gas-fired plants at 9%.
