Russian Strikes Cut Power to About 850,000 in Ukraine as Winter Nears
Overnight attacks on energy facilities left more than 600,000 people without power in the Dnipropetrovsk region and about 250,000 more in Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials said Sunday, days before US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi.
Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure cut power to about 850,000 people on Sunday, Ukrainian officials and the country’s largest private power company said, as temperatures fell toward freezing and winter approached.
In the central Dnipropetrovsk region, more than 600,000 residents lost power after an overnight attack damaged energy facilities, power company DTEK said in a post on Telegram. The outages hit five districts, including the regional capital, Dnipro, where the metro, trams and trolleybuses stopped running and hospitals switched to backup generators, according to regional officials.
DTEK said engineers were working to restore the damaged facility but repairs were being complicated by repeated attacks.
Kharkiv and Zhytomyr also hit
In the northeastern Kharkiv region, a Russian drone hit an infrastructure facility in the city of Zlatopil, Mayor Mykola Baksheyev said on social media. Nearly 250,000 customers in the region were left without power, he said, and no casualties were reported in the strike. Repair crews were at work, but Baksheyev said the exact time for restoring power was still unknown.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the overnight strikes had triggered widespread power outages across the country. In the Zhytomyr region alone, 140 apartment buildings were left without heating after a Russian strike, he said, as temperatures already hovered around freezing.
The strikes came a day after Ukraine’s energy ministry said a massive attack on energy facilities had plunged residents in five regions into darkness and significantly hampered electricity transmission in Kyiv.
Talks scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday
Zelenskyy has accused Russia of intensifying the strikes to put pressure on Kyiv at US-brokered trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday. The strikes came days after Russian forces fired 36 missiles and 172 drones at Kyiv ahead of the same talks.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces will continue to carry out strikes against Ukrainian fuel and energy infrastructure facilities that it says are used to aid the Ukrainian military.
Zelenskyy also said a Russian drone hit Komyshuvakha, a village in the Zaporizhzhia region where an aid distribution centre was hit on Monday. The death toll from that attack has risen to 55 people, he said. Emergency services had earlier put it at 50.
Reporting based on coverage by Al Jazeera, AFP and Reuters.
