(Reuters) – Russia has focused its recent air attacks on the Ukrainian military-industrial complex although the threat to energy facilities remains high, a senior military spy official was quoted as saying on Monday by the RBC-Ukraine news site.
Ukrainian officials have warned for months that Russia may target its energy system with missile and drone strikes for a second winter. Last year air strikes heavily damaged power facilities, causing blackouts for millions.
Asked about a spate of major Russian air strikes since Dec. 29, Vadym Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s military spy agency, said the same trend had not repeated so far and listed various targets Russia had aimed at.
“These are primarily objects of our military-industrial complex, headquarters, control systems and separate units that are located on the front line,” he was quoted as saying.
Skibitsky said the weapons used for the strikes were far from accurate, resulting in civilian suffering.
“Indeed, in December there was the most massive use of unmanned aerial vehicles of the Shahed type,” he said, adding that Russia had used about 770-780 of the drones in its attacks.
Moscow stepped up large-scale strikes over the holiday period and in late December carried out one of its biggest aerial assaults yet of the almost two-year-old war.
The Ukrainian military does not usually detail the aftermath of Russian strikes when it comes to its military complex though it did acknowledge that military facilities were among recent targets.
The attacks come as Kyiv increases efforts to ramp up domestic military production to ensure stable supplies and become less dependent on foreign partners, which face their own shortages and cannot meet Kyiv’s battlefield needs.
Despite the current trend, Ukraine’s energy grid is still under threat, Skibitsky said.
“The enemy continues to regularly carry out space footage of our energy facilities to launch such strikes if possible and if necessary,” he said.
(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa; editing by Tom Balmforth, Kirsten Donovan)
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