UKRAINE has been placed under red alert with civilians taking cover in bomb shelters and one million people plunged into darkness.
It came as Russia mounted a second “massive” attack on the country’s energy infrastructure with cruise missiles and kamikaze drones.
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Almost a million people throughout the country were left without power in the overnight blitz, the government said.
Officials across Ukraine reported explosions as large swathes were forced into emergency power cuts.
“Energy infrastructure is once again targeted by the enemy’s massive strike,” Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko wrote on Facebook.
Embattled Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff said the attack showed Russia is “continuing their tactics of terror”.
American ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink said she woke up on Thanksgiving morning in Kyiv to “see the whole country is red from the threat of missiles”.
Her post on X came above a stark map showing all of Ukraine filled in red – representing areas under Russian attack.
Russia has aimed countless attacks against the country’s energy infrastructure before, crippling key systems during the brutal winter months.
The United Nations warned that Russia’s strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure could make this winter the “harshest since the start of the war”.
Blasts reportedly rang out in capital Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Lutsk, Mykolaiv and Rivne.
Local officials also reported strikes in Sumy, Lviv, and Vinnytsia.
Some 260,000 people in the city of Zhytomyr were left with no running water, the local water supply company said.
Meanwhile the major region of Kherson was another area left with no electricity.
Kharkiv governor Oleh Syniehubov said a rocket strike on the city damaged a business and part of an apartment building.
Another missile attack on the northeastern Sumy region also targeted infrastructure, officials said.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said air defence systems had been activated on Thursday morning amid the nationwide attack.
Ukraine’s air force had previously warned residents about a missile threat for the capital.
Russia’s latest barrage comes after a week of sky-rocketing tensions in the region.
Putin’s forces fired an “Oreshnik” ballistic rocket at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro last Thursday – with chilling footage capturing warheads raining down from the sky.
The attack, he said, was in response to Ukraine firing western long-range missiles into Russia the week before.
Kyiv launched US ATACMS missiles against Putin’s territory overnight on November 11 – and British Storm Shadow rockets just two days later.
And Putin soon said military targets in the US and UK were also high on his hit list.
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