KYIV, Oct 12 - Western powers pledged to supply Ukraine with more potent air defense systems following a furious barrage of retaliatory Russian missile strikes, including one that temporarily knocked Europe’s biggest nuclear plant off the country’s electrical grid Wednesday.

The Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant suffered a “blackout” when a missile damaged a distant electrical substation, Ukraine’s state nuclear operator said, The Associated Press reported. The power loss increased the risk of a radiation emergency because the plant needs electricity to prevent its reactors from overheating.

Energoatom said the external power source was repaired after about eight hours and that the plant’s emergency diesel generators — which rely on uncertain fuel deliveries in the war zone — provided backup in the meantime, but a similarly hazardous interruption could happen at any time.

“Russia has seized the plant and is not taking any steps to deescalate. On the contrary, it is shelling important infrastructure daily,” the company’s press service told The Associated Press.

Hundreds of cities and towns across Ukraine lost electricity after Russia launched a wide-ranging missile assault Monday in retaliation for a truck bomb explosion that damaged a bridge linking Russia with the Crimean Peninsula, which it annexed in 2014.

With repairs to the grid still in progress, Ukraine’s prime minister asked people to reduce evening energy consumption by 25% and prepare for winter by keeping essentials such as warm clothes, candles, flashlights and batteries ready.

As the barrage that killed dozens of Ukrainians this week continued, Ukraine’s Western allies met at NATO headquarters in Brussels to calibrate their response.

U.S. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Ukraine wants its Western partners to provide it with a complete air defense system to contend with Russian warplanes and missiles. Milley spoke to reporters after a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, about 50 nations that meet regularly to assess Kyiv’s needs and drum up equipment.

“What Ukraine is asking for, and what we think can be provided, is an integrated air missile defense system. So that doesn’t control all the airspace over Ukraine, but they’re designed to control priority targets that Ukraine needs to protect,” Milley told reporters.

A day after Ukraine’s Defense Ministry announced the arrival of the first of Germany’s four promised IRIS-T air defense systems, the defense minister of the Netherlands said her country would deliver $14.5 million worth of air defense missiles in light of Russia’s latest attacks.

“These attacks reinforce the government’s belief that they can only be answered with unwavering support for Ukraine and its people,” Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongreher said. “The Netherlands, like our partners, will not be intimidated by Russia.”

French President Emmanuel Macron, in a television interview Wednesday evening, promised prompt delivery of more cannons and also anti-aircraft systems and missiles.

The U.S. is expected to deliver two advanced NASAMs anti-aircraft systems in the coming weeks.

The nuclear scare and pledges of more Western support came amid a flurry of developments in Russia’s 7 1/2-month-old invasion.

Rafael Grossi, the head of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, said the loss of external power at the nuclear plant for the second time in five days again exposed “how precarious the situation is,” and he pleaded again for a security zone around the plant.

All six of the Zaporizhzhia reactors were stopped earlier due to the war. But they still require electricity to prevent them and their spent fuel rods from overheating to the point of a meltdown that could release radiation into the atmosphere of Ukraine and potentially other European countries, including Russia. (ap/ez)