Russia Strikes Ukraine’s Energy Infrastructure on Christmas Day

Moscow again struck Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, part of an effort to wear down the country. “In the trenches, there are no holidays,” one man said.

Air-raid alarms and explosions sounded on Christmas Day in Ukraine as Russian missiles and drones targeted the nation’s energy infrastructure.

“Today, Putin deliberately chose Christmas for an attack,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in a statement. “What could be more inhuman?”

Before dawn on Wednesday, Russia directed more than 70 cruise and ballistic missiles and 100 strike drones, Ukrainian officials said. As rescue workers and energy repair crews raced to assess the damage in the morning, alarms sounded again and more missiles streaked through the skies. At least six people were wounded in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, and one person was killed in Dnipro, but officials said that the toll from strikes around the country may rise.

The Ukrainian military said air defense teams shot down 59 missiles and either shot down or disabled most of the drones used in the attack. Ukraine’s largest private energy company said the attacks caused serious damage to equipment, and power outages were declared across the country.

It was the 13th large-scale bombardment of the Ukrainian energy grid this year in a campaign that has left the country’s energy network devastated and forced the authorities to turn to unconventional measures to try to prevent a total collapse of the grid.

President Biden condemned the attacks on Wednesday, saying, “Let me be clear: the Ukrainian people deserve to live in peace and safety, and the United States and the international community must continue to stand with Ukraine until it triumphs over Russia’s aggression.”

Ukrainians are exhausted by years of bombardments and mourning the loss of tens of thousands fighting on the front. Instead of getting a reprieve this Christmas, many Ukrainians were huddled in bomb shelters, not celebrating with friends and family.

Nika Chervonna, 26, said she was planning to spend Christmas with friends, but after a missile strike in her hometown, Kryvyi Rih, in central Ukraine, on Christmas Eve and more explosions in the morning, she canceled her plans and “decided to stay home with my dog.”

“The morning shelling and power outages were frightening and completely destroyed any sense of ‘celebration,’” she said in a phone interview.

“I have been taking antidepressants for six months,” she said. “But even they no longer give me a sense of peace.”

As Russia tries to undermine Ukraine’s will to fight, the number of civilians killed over the past year has soared. At least three times as many civilians were killed by aerial bombing from January to November 2024 compared with 2023, according to the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. In that period, the U.N. group found, aerial attacks alone killed 341 civilians and wounded 1,803 others.

The latest attacks came as rescue workers were still combing through the rubble after a missile struck an apartment building in Kryvyi Rih on Christmas Eve, killing one person and injuring more than a dozen others, according to local officials.

Dmytro Klymenko, 20, said he was shopping for food for Christmas Eve dinner with his family when an explosion shook the supermarket.

“I dropped everything and ran to the shelter,” he said by phone on Wednesday. He works as a local journalist and visited the blast site, where he said he watched crowds anxiously gather in the bitter cold as rescue workers pulled survivors from the ruins.

“Honestly, with this war, there’s no sense of the holiday season at all,” he said. “I didn’t even put up a Christmas tree at home because it just doesn’t feel appropriate. In the trenches, there are no holidays.”

“It’s terrifying to live in such times,” he said. “There are constant thoughts that this could be the last day or that my home could be hit at any moment. My imagination spirals into a dead end, making it even harder to cope.”

The Ukrainian government passed a law in 2023 changing the date of Christmas to Dec. 25, from Jan. 7, the traditional Orthodox date that Russians celebrate. It was part of a broader effort in Ukraine to reclaim its own identity and has been embraced by many across the country.

At the Church of St. Nicholas in Kyiv, a Catholic cathedral that had its windows blown out after a missile slammed into the heart of the capital on Friday, white tarps were strung up on the ceiling to catch falling debris as people gathered for Christmas Mass.

There was no heat in the building, but people bundled up against the cold as they sought solace in tradition and found hope in faith.

Nataliia Novosolova and Anastasia Kuznietsova contributed reporting.