Kyiv, Ukraine – The Russian drone strike was surgically precise and destroyed a giant transformer at a key power station in the Ukrainian capital.“There’s nothing left to repair,” Mykola Svyrydenko, who lives close to Thermal Station 5, a sprawling, Soviet-era structure with two giant steam pipes that provides electricity and heat to hundreds of thousands of Kyiv’s residents, told Al Jazeera.He saw the predawn attack on October 10 that caused several blasts and a giant fire at the power station. The attack involved 465 drones and 32 missiles that targeted several Ukrainian cities, authorities said.“This isn’t the first time the station has been hit,” another local, Artyom Gavrilenko, told Al Jazeera outside his five-storey apartment building.Since the winter of 2022, Russia has tried to hit Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, leaving the country scrambling to provide power to its homes and industries in subzero temperatures.Although it has survived those assaults, the recent attack on the Kyiv station represents a new phase in Russia’s campaign to ruin Ukrainian power, transmission and heating stations, as well as natural gas mines, pipelines and underground reservoirs. It is a shift in Russian tactics that could test Ukraine like never before, say analysts.On October 10, Gavrilenko’s building – and most of the city of almost four million people – were le …
