Russia carried out a “massive strike” on critically important energy facilities of Ukraine’s military-industrial complex on Friday, the Russian defence ministry said on Saturday.

In a daily update, the ministry did not identify the energy facilities it claimed to have hit. It said the strike had also blocked the transport of foreign weapons and ammunition by rail to battlegrounds in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s armed forces said late on Friday that Russian forces had fired more than 100 missiles and mounted 12 air and 20 shelling attacks. It said 61 Russian cruise missiles were destroyed.

Ukraine’s energy minister German Galushchenko said Russia had hit power facilities in six regions with missiles and drones, causing blackouts across most of the country.

Russia claims ‘massive strike’ on Ukrainian energy facilities

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Russia has repeatedly attacked civilian infrastructure far from the front lines, leaving millions of Ukrainians without power, heat or water for days at a time in the middle of winter.

Meanwhile, the boss of the Russian mercenary Wagner group said it could take Russia two years to seize the entire east of Ukraine in a rare interview that suggests at least some key figures in Moscow are gearing up for a protracted conflict.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has emerged from the shadows to become a high-profile figure since the start of the war, suggested Russia’s focus was now on capturing the rest of the Donbas region it has not occupied since the start of the war nearly a year ago.

Doing so would take “about one and half to two more years of work”, the ally of president Vladimir Putin said. If the goal was to occupy all of Ukraine east of the Dnipro river, this would “take about three years”, he said.

Ukrainian officials expect an imminent Russian onslaught, possibly before the first anniversary of the start of the war on February 24th, although a renewed advance on the capital, Kyiv, is not thought likely, after an advance failed badly last year. – Agencies