(NEWSnet/AP) – A massive attack destroyed one of Ukraine's largest power plants and damaged others, officials said Thursday, part of a renewed Russian campaign targeting energy infrastructure.

The Trypilska plant, which was the biggest energy supplier for the Kyiv, Cherkasy and Zhytomyr regions, was struck numerous times, destroying the transformer, turbines and generators and leaving the plant ablaze. As the first drone approached, workers hid in a shelter, a step that likely saved their lives, said Andrii Gota, chairman of the supervisory board of the state company that runs the plant, Centrenergo.

Speaking in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin cast the attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities as a response to Ukrainian strikes that targeted Russian oil refineries.

The Trypilska plant supplied electricity to 3 million customers. There were no direct power losses because the grid was able to compensate. But the loss of that power supply will likely be noticed in the summer when as air conditioning use ramps up.

At least 10 other strikes overnight damaged energy infrastructure in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said more than 200,000 people in the region, which has been struck repeatedly, were without power.

The volume and accuracy of the attacks have alarmed the country’s defenders and left officials scrambling for better ways to protect energy assets. The strikes have also tested Ukraine’s ability to make quick repairs.

Ukraine’s leaders have pleaded for more air defense systems to ward off such attacks, but those supplies have been slow in coming.

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