Kyiv, April 28 (IANS/DPA): Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has decried Russian attacks on the country's gas transit system.
Zelensky said in his evening video message broadcast in Kyiv on Saturday that the infrastructure through which gas is channelled through Ukraine to the European Union has been attacked.
Despite the Russian invasion, which has been going on for more than two years, Russian gas continues to flow through the country - albeit in much smaller quantities.
The state-owned gas company Naftogaz had also previously complained of Russian attacks on the pipeline network, without giving details.
The company recently announced that it would no longer be transporting Russian gas to the West from 2025 onwards - the current contracts with the Russian state-owned company Gazprom expire at the end of the year.
The main recipients are countries without access to the sea that are unable to switch to liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Russia once again hit Ukraine with missile attacks in the early hours of Saturday, targeting energy facilities in particular. Four thermal power plants were damaged, according to the energy company DTEK.
Following the air strikes, Zelensky once again called on the West to provide more air defence support. In his video address, he explained that Russia had expanded the radius with its massive attacks, which was now making the work of Ukrainian air defence even more difficult.
Ukraine needs more US Patriot air defence systems.
Workers in Ukraine are in the process of repairing the damage caused by the new Russian attacks, said Zelensky.
Moscow had previously excused the massive new shelling of energy facilities in Ukraine by saying that Kyiv was also attacking Russian infrastructure with drones.
During one such attack, a fire broke out at an oil processing plant in the Krasnodar region on Saturday. However, the damage caused by Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory is minuscule compared to the massive destruction caused by Moscow's missile strikes against Ukrainian facilities.