After a massive Russian drone attack on energy facilities in several regions of Ukraine, power cuts occurred again in Kyiv and eight other regions on Friday morning. The state grid operator Ukrenerho announced this, according to the news agency Ukrinform. According to the report, in addition to the capital, the regions of Kyiv, Volyn, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv are affected.
“During the night and in the morning, the enemy carried out a massive drone attack on energy facilities in several regions,” Ukrinform quoted Ukrenerho as saying. “As a result, there are new power cuts in the morning.” Where the security situation allows, repair and restoration work has already begun. According to Ukrenerho, emergency plans to limit capacity for industry as well as hourly shutdowns of up to two stages are being applied in some regions until the end of the day.
Due to the bad weather, eleven villages in the Poltava and Sumy regions were also completely or partially without power in the morning. Repair teams from the regional energy suppliers were working to restore damaged power lines. According to Ukrenerho, electricity consumption at 9:30 on Friday corresponded to the level of the previous day. The grid operator called for electricity to be consumed sparingly and for several high-powered electrical appliances not to be switched on at the same time between 16:00 and 22:00. Emergency shutdowns had been introduced in Kyiv on the morning of 16 October.
One power plant, one residential block, three dead
The current attack is part of a series of heavy strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Already in the night to Wednesday, a wave of Russian missiles and drones had hit the capital. As the news outlet Euronews reported on Wednesday, at least three people died and 22 were injured. In the Desnianskyi district, an attack hit a nine-storey residential block, two people died and 21 were injured, including a child. Emergency services rescued 16 residents, and the fire brigade fought a fire covering 400 square metres. 16 injured people were taken to hospital, four of them were in a serious condition. Another person died in the Holosiivskyi district, and one person was injured when a building not used for residential purposes was hit. Psychologists from the emergency services provided care to 110 people at the affected locations.
The attacks were also directed against Kyiv’s energy infrastructure. According to the Euronews report, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that a ballistic missile hit the CHP-4 combined heat and power plant. He said Ukraine had received no advance warning from its partners before the incoming missiles appeared on the radars. The night-time attacks on energy facilities left more than 600,000 people across the country without power.
Repairs under security risk
For the people in Ukraine, this means: electricity only comes for hours in many places, and industrial companies have to reduce their production. According to Ukrenerho, the repair teams only work where the security situation allows – an indication that further attacks are feared. Ukrenerho appealed to households to save electricity in the evening hours in order to stabilise the grid.
The attacks are hitting a country where winter is approaching and the energy supply is already strained. Ukrenerho initially left open how many facilities were damaged this time and how long the outages will last. The grid operator announced further repairs as soon as the situation allows.
