Russia launched dozens of missiles and drones at the Ukrainian energy sector, Kyiv said Wednesday, ramping up a months-long bombing campaign at a precarious moment of the war for Ukraine.

The barrage came just one day after Kyiv said it had carried out its largest aerial attack of the war on Russian army factories and energy hubs hundreds of kilometres from the front line.

The Ukrainian air force said Russia had deployed 43 cruise and ballistic missiles and 74 attack drones in the overnight barrage that appeared to have targeted sites mainly in western Ukraine.

“Another massive Russian attack. It is the middle of winter, and the target for the Russians remains the same: our energy sector,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media.

The Russian defence ministry confirmed in a statement its forces had carried out “high precision” strikes on energy facilities that “support the Ukrainian military-industrial complex.”

It also repeated its claim that all the designated targets had been struck.

But the Ukrainian air force said 30 missiles had been shot down as well as 47 drones, while Zelensky said the authorities had been able to maintain the “operation of our energy system.”