Kyiv Power Cut as Russia Steps Up Strikes

Russia hit Kyiv with a massive drone and missile attack that left parts of the capital without power and disrupted water supply as Moscow targets energy infrastructure ahead of winter.

Power was out in several city districts and at least 12 civilians were injured, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a Telegram post on Friday. He added that firefighters extinguished a blaze in a multistory building in the city center which was hit by drone debris. The attack also disrupted water supply to people’s homes, Klitschko said.

The power loss mainly affected the east of the city and a central district while the blackout disrupted the operations of Kyiv’s metro, the city administration said on Telegram. Trains were unable to operate on a line running from downtown to the left bank of the River Dnipro.

“It was a cynical and calculated attack, with more than 450 drones and over thirty missiles targeting everything that sustains normal life, everything the Russians want to deprive us of,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a post on X. 

Power outages were reported in a number of cities from Donetsk in the east, Odesa in the south, Chernihiv in the north, Zelenskiy said. A child was killed in the city of Zaporizhzhia and 20 people were injured elsewhere across the country, according to the president.

Russia has significantly increased its attacks on Ukraine’s power infrastructure as the cold season approaches. That’s made disruptions to electricity a regular problem in regions bordering Russia, but it’s been a while since the capital suffered a blackout similar to that experienced in the winter season of 2022-2023.

Ukraine’s air-defense has intercepted 420 drones and missiles of 497 that were launched, it said on Telegram. Those downed included Russia’s hypersonic missile known as Kinzhal. Missiles and drones hit 19 locations across the country, according to the statement.

In a post on Facebook, Energy Minister Svitlana Grynchuk talked of a “massive blow” to energy infrastructure. “Energy workers are taking all necessary measures to minimize the negative consequences” she said.

The strike left many consumers in nine Ukrainian regions and the capital without electricity, with power engineers working hard to fix the issue, the nation’s power grid operator NPC Ukrenergo, said on Telegram.

Ukraine’s central regions of Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia were also hit in the attack, the country’s Air Defense said on Telegram.

The strike damaged some local gas infrastructure in Zaporizhzhia region in the country’s south, prompting the local branch of the state-owned company Naftogaz to call on residents to reduce consumption to stabilize pressure in the system and allow for repair works.    

Ukraine’s gas infrastructure — able to meet domestic demand before the Russian full-scale invasion — has come under increasingly intense missile and drone strikes since the beginning of this year. 

In recent days, Russian strikes have wiped out more than half of Ukraine’s domestic natural gas production, which is key for heating.

If the attacks continue, Ukraine expects it would need to buy roughly 4.4 billion cubic meters of gas by the end of March, at a cost of nearly €2 billion ($2.3 billion), according to people familiar with the details. That’s the equivalent of nearly 20% of Ukraine’s annual consumption.

“It is precisely the civilian and energy infrastructure that is the main target of Russia’s strikes ahead of the heating season,” Zelenskiy said urging Ukraine’s western allies to deliver more air defense systems and enforce sanctions against Russia. 

“What’s needed is not window dressing but decisive action – from the United States, Europe, and the G7,” Zelenskiy said.

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