Russia targets infrastructure in Ukraine's east and south in extensive overnight air attack

KYIV (Reuters) - Russia launched 161 drones and a dozen missiles overnight, targeting gas infrastructure in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region and hitting power supply in the southern Odesa region for a second night in a row, Ukrainian officials said on Thursday.

The attack was part of an intensified assault on Ukraine's energy system over the past month as Russia discusses ending its war in Ukraine with the new U.S. administration of President Donald Trump, who has blamed Ukraine for Russia's invasion.

"The purpose of these criminal attacks is to stop the production of gas needed to meet the domestic needs of citizens and central heating," Ukraine's Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Facebook.

The Ukrainian military said it shot down 80 drones and 78 were "lost," likely due to electronic countermeasures, adding that Russia also fired about 14 missiles aimed at what it called "critical infrastructure" in Kharkiv.

Ukraine's main gas production capacity, which covers almost half of Ukrainian gas needs, is in the frontline Kharkiv and neighbouring Poltava regions.

Russia previously focused its missile and drone attacks on Ukraine's electricity sector but has in recent months sharply stepped up its attacks on gas storage facilities and production fields.

Ukraine's gas import volumes have increased almost tenfold since the start of February after Russian missile attacks targeting its gas facilities.

Data by the state-run operator of the Ukrainian gas transmission system showed imports totalling 22.20 million cubic metres (mcm) on Thursday against 25.80 mcm on Wednesday and a record high of 26.7 mcm on Tuesday.

In Odesa region, a "massive" drone attack injured one person and cut power to 5,000 local residents, prosecutors said on the Telegram messaging app. It also damaged an administrative and a residential building as well as a private company's storage facility, they added.

Some 49,000 consumers remained without power as of Thursday morning, Odesa regional governor Oleh Kiper said, adding that engineers had restored power to two boiler houses heating homes cut off by the previous attack, which affected 500 buildings.

Russia says its attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure are designed to undermine its military and that it does not deliberately target civilians, although thousands have been killed since Moscow's invasion almost three years ago.

(Reporting by Anastasiia Malenko and Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Philippa Fletcher)