A Russian missile hit an important thermal power plant in Burshtyn in western Ukraine on Wednesday, Svitlana Onishchuk, the governor of the Ivano-Frankivsk region, said, as quoted by Reuters.

The coal-fired power plant provides electricity to five million consumers in three regions of Ukraine, i.e. more than 10% of the country’s pre-war population.

In an online statement, Onischuk said the explosion caused a fire at the plant, but no one was injured.

This territory, located hundreds of kilometers from the front, has so far not been badly affected by the armed conflict started by Russia in February. According to the governor, on October 10, the thermal power plant in Burshtyn was hit by four rockets.

And her colleague from the Vinnytsia region, Serhiy Borzov, announced on Wednesday that the Russians had attacked energy installations, but did not provide details about the strikes.

In Kyiv, air defense shot down several Russian missiles, Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said, Agerpres reports.

Ukraine is forced to introduce a scheduled power cut across the country

Ukrainian energy officials said Wednesday they had no choice but to impose emergency and planned blackouts after losing at least 40 percent of the country’s power generation capacity following days of devastating cruise missile and Russian drone strikes, CNN reported.

“Unfortunately, according to new data, about 40% of our general infrastructure and generating capacities are really badly damaged,” said Oleksandr Kharchenko, adviser to the Minister of Energy of Ukraine.

“Restoration and repair work is ongoing, but miracles are only possible to a certain extent,” Kharchenko said in a statement broadcast on national television.

“That’s why today and tomorrow we should expect not only emergency, but also scheduled outages in order not to overload the network,” he added.

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