The Ukrainian energy minister says Russia has launched a massive aerial attack against Ukraine, forcing the country to introduce preventive power cuts

The scale of the assault on Wednesday was not immediately clear, but Ukraine’s energy minister called it “massive.”

Russia launched a new barrage of missiles and drones at Ukraine on Wednesday, targeting gas infrastructure and other energy facilities in western regions in the latest strike on the country's hobbled power system as it approaches mid-winter.

Russia launched dozens of missiles and drones at the Ukrainian energy sector, Kyiv said Wednesday, ramping up a months-long bombing campaign at a precarious moment of the war for Ukraine.The barrage came just one day after Kyiv said it had carried out its largest aerial attack of the war on Russian army factories and energy hubs hundreds of kilometres from the front line.

The Kremlin accused Ukraine on Monday of conducting "energy terrorism" and posing a danger to Europe's energy security, after an attempted drone attack on part of a major gas pipeline