Russian drones hit Ukraine power plant, leaving residents in the cold

French President Emmanuel Macron will host emergency meeting in Paris on Monday to discuss the Russia-Ukraine war.

Russian drone strikes have damaged a thermal power plant in Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine overnight, leaving 46,000 consumers without heating as temperatures plunge below freezing, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.

“This was done deliberately to leave people without heat in sub-zero temperatures and create a humanitarian catastrophe,” Shmyhal said on the Telegram messenger app.

Russia attacked Ukraine with 143 drones overnight, but the Ukrainian military said it shot down 95 of them, while 46 did not reach their targets, likely thanks to the use of electromagnetic countermeasures that disrupt drone attacks.

At least one person was injured in the overnight attacks which also damaged houses in the Kyiv region, Ukrainian officials said. The temperature in Mykolaiv is expected to fall to minus 7 degrees Celsius (19.4 Fahrenheit) on Sunday night.

Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from Kyiv, said the Ukrainian army announced it has seen an “uptick in attacks by Russian forces” over the past 24 hours.