KYIV, Ukraine, June 19, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Russia launched nearly two dozen

attack drones towards western Ukraine overnight and damaged energy facilities
near the border and in the centre of the war-battered country, officials said
Wednesday.

The latest bombardment of energy infrastructure comes after officials
announced rolling blackouts throughout the day to limit pressure on the grid
in the wake of devastating Russian attacks on Ukrainian power plants.

"At night, the enemy attacked an energy facility in a central region. Some
equipment was damaged," the energy ministry said, adding that police and
emergency services had been called to the scene.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said this month that Russian drone and missile
attacks had cut Ukraine's electricity generation capacity by half compared to
one year ago.

He has called on allies to send more air defence systems to Ukraine to fend
off systematic attacks on critical infrastructure.

The Kremlin says its forces do not target civilians or civilian
infrastructure but the Russian military has said it carries out retaliatory
attacks on energy facilities.

In the western region of Lviv, which has been spared the worst of fighting of
the war now in its third year, the energy ministry said "overhead lines and
electrical equipment were damaged" in the barrage.

The governor of the western region that borders EU and NATO member Poland
said the attacks overnight wounded two civilians, a 47-year-old and a 70-
year-old.

The air force said air defence systems had downed 19 Iranian-designed attack
drones overnight out of a total of 21 deployed by Russia.

Energy officials warned this week that scheduled and emergency outages were
likely to increase in coming weeks. Officials say repair work on the damaged
plants could take years and will cost millions of dollars.