Poltava Gas Facilities Shut Down as Russia’s Missile and Drone Barrage Hits Ukraine

Russia carried out a massive overnight attack on Ukraine’s energy and civilian infrastructure early Thursday, Oct. 16, launching dozens of missiles and hundreds of drones, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

The attack came nearly three years to the day since Moscow began its campaign to destroy Ukraine’s power grid – a tactic repeated each winter in an effort to plunge the country into darkness and cold.

According to Zelensky, Russian forces used more than 300 drones and 37 missiles, including a significant number of ballistic missiles. Some drones carried cluster munitions, and repeated strikes targeted areas where emergency crews were working to repair damage.

“And there is confirmation that the Russians are using double terror — striking with ‘Shahed’ drones carrying cluster munitions and following up with repeat attacks to injure firefighters and energy workers restoring damaged sites,” Zelensky said.

Private energy company DTEK reported that its facilities came under fire during the night. As a result of the strikes, gas production sites in the Poltava region were shut down, officials confirmed.

This comes after a previous major attack on Oct. 3, which Ukrainian officials described as the most massive strike on the country’s gas infrastructure since the start of the full-scale war. That assault targeted facilities in Kharkiv and Poltava regions, causing widespread damage.

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Serhiy Koretskyi, head of Naftogaz Group, said the Oct. 3 attack involved 35 missiles and 60 drones. Ukrainian air defenses intercepted some, but not all.

“It was targeted terror against civilian facilities that ensure gas extraction and processing needed for people’s daily lives,” Koretskyi wrote on Facebook.

The Ukrainian Air Force reported groups of Russian drones heading toward Poltava, Kharkiv, Donetsk, and western Ukraine during the latest night attack.

Radar detected the takeoff of a MiG-31K fighter jets, capable of carrying Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, while monitoring groups reported additional missile and ballistic launches.

Explosions were reported in Kharkiv, Kropyvnytskyi, Poltava, and Chernihiv, according to local media. By 7:51 a.m., authorities confirmed that a Russian strike hit an industrial site and a residential building in Chernihiv, though no casualties were reported, said Dmytro Bryzhynskyi, head of the city’s military