Energy Crisis: 600,000 Left in Darkness After Russian Strikes
Repeated attacks on Ukraine's grid have cut power to hundreds of thousands of residents just before scheduled trilateral talks.
By Arjun Weber ·
More than 600,000 residents in Dnipropetrovsk lost electricity on Sunday after Russian forces damaged key energy facilities overnight. Power company DTEK reported the outage on Telegram, noting that repeated strikes have complicated efforts to restore service to the central region.
The impact extended to the northeast, where a Russian drone struck a critical infrastructure site in Kharkiv region. Mykola Baksheyev, mayor of Zlatopil, stated that nearly 250,000 customers in that area were left without power. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that the night-time strikes caused widespread power outages across the country.
Heating systems failed in the Zhytomyr region, leaving 140 apartment buildings cold as temperatures hovered near freezing. Zelenskyy also addressed ongoing damage in Zaporizhzhia region, where Russia launched a drone at Komyshuvakha. This village suffered a deadly attack on an aid distribution center on Monday, which has now claimed 55 lives.
Emergency services had previously reported 50 deaths, but Zelenskyy noted the toll has risen. He warned that rescue operations in Komyshuvakha have continued for seven days and that more people may remain trapped under the rubble. The latest strikes occurred one day after Ukraine's energy ministry reported that a massive attack plunged five regions into darkness and hindered electricity transmission in Kyiv.
Zelenskyy accused Russia of increasing its offensive actions ahead of trilateral talks scheduled for next week with Moscow. The coordinated strikes on the energy grid have left large portions of the population without heat or light during the early winter months.
