Russian strikes in Ukraine leave hundreds of thousands without electricity as repairs begin

Outages across two regions

More than 600,000 people in Dnipropetrovsk region lost electricity after a Russian overnight attack damaged an energy facility, power provider DTEK said. Outages affected the Pavlohrad, Samarivskyi, Kamianske and Dnipro districts, along with the city of Dnipro.

DTEK said engineers were at the site working to restore the facility. The company said repeated attacks were making the repair work more difficult. In Kharkiv region, another 250,000 people lost power on Sunday after a strike on an infrastructure facility.

Repairs and casualty reports

Mykola Baksheyev, mayor of Zlatopil, said no casualties had been reported. He said power engineers were working to repair the damage, but the time needed to restore electricity was not yet known.

The outages followed a previous day’s attack on energy facilities. Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy said that strike had left residents in five regions without power and significantly disrupted electricity transmission in Kyiv.

Winter and diplomatic backdrop

Ukraine is preparing for another harsh winter of war as Russia increases daily aerial attacks involving drones and missiles against the power network. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of intensifying attacks to pressure Kyiv ahead of US-brokered trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday. Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces would continue striking Ukrainian fuel and energy infrastructure that it said supports the Ukrainian military.