According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russian drones attacked a combined heat and power plant in Kyiv on Friday evening and facilities in Shostka in Sumy region in the early hours of Saturday. Zelensky said this in his Telegram channel, according to Radio Svoboda.
In the Dnipropetrovsk region alone, four substations and a gas distribution facility were attacked during the night, Zelensky wrote on Saturday, 31 October. After the attacks, households in Dnipro and the region are without electricity. According to n-tv, around 280,000 households were affected in both regions combined; the figure is based on a statement by President Zelensky.
According to Radio Svoboda, the energy supplier DTEK said that Russian forces had delivered “painful blows” to the energy sector across the country on Friday, including in Kyiv. These attacks had overlapped with damage from earlier shelling, “which is why the situation in the energy system has become even more difficult”. Because of the consequences, power cuts were stepped up, and technicians were continuously repairing the damaged facilities.
Water supply disrupted after strikes in Kyiv
On the evening of 30 October, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported “three drone strikes on a critical infrastructure facility in the capital”, according to Radio Svoboda. Water supply problems then occurred in the city.
According to Zelensky, Russia attacks Ukraine’s energy sector every day. In the last two weeks of October alone, there were more than 30 Russian strikes on very important parts of the energy grid. According to Radio Svoboda, the campaign against energy infrastructure began at the end of September 2026, immediately before the heating season.
On Friday, 30 October, the Berliner Zeitung reported on the consequences of the attacks in Dnipro. After several attacks, more than 350,000 electricity connections in the city and surrounding communities were temporarily without supply, as the head of the regional administration, Oleksandr Hanzha, said. The damaged grid collapsed again on Friday morning after initial repairs, and public transport largely came to a standstill. Dnipro railway station was also attacked again during the night, as the head of the state railway Ukrzaliznytsia, Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, said.
According to the Berliner Zeitung, the death toll from the drone attack on a platform in Dnipro on Thursday rose to 15. On Friday, a 40-year-old man died of his injuries in hospital, the newspaper reported, citing regional administration head Hanzha. Eleven injured people were still being treated in hospitals, six of them in a serious condition, including an eleven-year-old boy.
UN commission accuses Russia of crimes against humanity
According to Radio Svoboda, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the crimes committed in Russia’s war against Ukraine accuses Russia of crimes against humanity in connection with the attacks on energy facilities. The commission stresses that, with winter approaching, the Russian strikes significantly affect the physical and mental health of the civilian population as well as the operation of hospitals. In the winter of 2025/2026, people in Ukraine had already had to endure long periods without heating, electricity and water in severe cold. The commission concludes that the attacks are targeted and part of a “state policy aimed at depriving the civilian population of vital energy resources in order to cause suffering”.
In his Telegram post, Zelensky called for further sanctions and new support packages for Ukraine. “The world sees how Russia targets civilian infrastructure every day. And everyone who does not want to see how this Russian escalation can continue further in Europe must help Ukraine,” he wrote, according to Radio Svoboda.
Editor’s note: The available sources do not indicate how severe the damage to individual facilities is or how long the outages will last.
