Over 850,000 Ukrainians Face Outages After Russian Grid Strikes

More than 850,000 people across Ukraine lost electricity on Sunday following a series of Russian strikes on energy infrastructure. Ukrainian authorities and energy officials confirmed the outages on Sunday, marking the second consecutive day of major disruptions to the national power grid.

The central Dnipropetrovsk region reported the largest single disruption. DTEK, a major power company, stated on Telegram that more than 600,000 residents in the region were left without power after overnight attacks damaged key energy facilities. The company noted that repair crews were working to restore service, but warned that repeated attacks on the grid complicated the restoration process.

In the northeastern Kharkiv region, nearly 250,000 customers lost power after a Russian drone struck a critical infrastructure facility in the city of Zlatopil. Mykola Baksheyev, the mayor of Zlatopil, provided these figures on social media. These outages followed a massive attack the previous day that affected residents in five regions and hindered electricity transmission in the capital, Kyiv.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the night-time strikes as causing widespread power outages across the country. He highlighted the impact on the Zhytomyr region, where 140 apartment buildings lost heating. Zelenskyy noted that temperatures across Ukraine were already hovering around freezing, increasing the immediate need for restoration.

Zelenskyy accused Russia of intensifying its attacks ahead of trilateral talks with Moscow expected to take place next week. He linked the current wave of strikes to a pattern of escalation as the two sides prepare for negotiations.

In the Zaporizhzhia region, Russia launched a drone at Komyshuvakha, a village where an aid distribution center was hit on Monday. Zelenskyy said the death toll from that initial strike has risen to 55 people, up from the 50 reported by emergency services. He stated that rescue operations had continued for seven days and that more people might still be trapped under the rubble.

The strikes on Komyshuvakha represent one of the deadliest attacks of the conflict. Emergency teams remained at the site on Sunday, working to clear debris and search for survivors as the power grid struggles to recover from the coordinated nighttime assault.