'Imagine if just one dam is hit': Russian-Ukrainian energy war heats up

Olena Rozumovska is at the end of her rope. Her two-bedroom apartment in an Soviet-era concrete building has no electricity or water supply, and the central heating is off after Russian drones and missiles struck Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, on Friday. I want to howl with despair," the 33-year-old, whose husband, Mykhailo, is fighting against Russian forces in southeastern Ukraine, told Al Jazeera over the phone. The outdoor temperatures in Kharkiv barely rose above freezing on Friday, a cold drizzle was falling, and her apartment building "is losing warmth", she said. Early in the morning, she jumped out of bed on hearing the thud of a powerful explosion. More than a dozen heavy, blood-curdling blasts followed as she hid in the frigid basement with her two children, Bohdan, who is seven, and four-year-old Roxana. The children were "hysterical" because they had to leave their Siamese cat behind. Their pet, named Monya, wouldn't come out from under the sofa. What roiled her and millions of Ukrainians was the scope of the bombardment, which became the largest strike on their nation's energy infrastructure since the war began in 2022. "The aim is not just to destroy but to try yet again, like last year, to cause a massive disruption of the energy infrastructure," Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko wrote on Facebook. In the winter of 2022-2023, Moscow switched to massive shelling that targeted energy infrastructure and civilian sites after realising that its blitzkrieg to take over all of Ukraine had failed. Friday's attacks with about 60 drones and 90 missiles killed at least two people, wounded scores, struck Ukraine's largest dam and severed the power supply to the Russia-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, officials said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rebuked the West for months-long delays in military aid. "Russian missiles have no delays, unlike aid packages for Ukraine.