Hundreds of thousands of people were left without electricity in Ukraine on Sunday after Russian strikes hit energy infrastructure in the Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions, Ukrainian authorities and power company DTEK said.1,3,4
DTEK said more than 600,000 residents in the Dnipropetrovsk region lost power, while the mayor of Zlatopil city said nearly 250,000 customers in the Kharkiv region were without power. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of intensifying attacks to put pressure on Kyiv at United States-brokered trilateral talks.1,4
In the Dnipropetrovsk region, which CBS News described as central Ukraine and Al Jazeera described as eastern Ukraine, DTEK said on Telegram that a night attack had damaged energy facilities. Al Jazeera reported that residents across the Pavlohrad, Samarivskyi, Kamianske and Dnipro districts, as well as the city of Dnipro, faced outages on Sunday.1,4
DTEK said the company was working to restore electricity but the task was "complicated by repeated attacks." Al Jazeera reported that engineers were at the scene attempting to restore the damaged facility, but "repairs are being complicated by repeated attacks," according to DTEK.1,4
In another strike, a Russian drone hit "a critical infrastructure facility" in the northeastern Kharkiv region, the mayor of Zlatopil city, Mykola Baksheyev, said on social media. He said, "Nearly 250,000 customers in the Kharkiv region were left without power." Al Jazeera gave the figure in that region as 250,000 Ukrainians without power.1,4
"No casualties have been reported," Baksheyev said on Telegram. He added, "Power engineers are currently working to repair the damage; however, the exact timeframe for restoring the electricity supply remains unknown."4
Zelenskyy has accused Russia of intensifying attacks to put pressure on Kyiv at the trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday. CBS News also reported that Volodymyr had previously accused Russia of ramping up attacks ahead of trilateral talks next week with Russia.1,4
Russia's Ministry of Defence stated on its Telegram channel that its forces will "continue to carry out strikes against Ukrainian fuel and energy infrastructure facilities" that they say are used to aid the Ukrainian military.4
The attacks came a day after Ukraine's Ministry of Energy said a massive attack on energy facilities had plunged residents in five regions into darkness and significantly hampered electricity transmission in Kyiv. Al Jazeera reported that Ukraine is bracing for yet another harsh winter of war as Russia ramps up daily aerial attacks, raining down drones and missiles on the power network.4
France 24 reported that Moscow has intensified its attacks as winter approaches, leaving residents in Kyiv and other parts of the country struggling with power cuts as temperatures continue to drop.3
DTEK and Baksheyev said repair work in both regions was continuing on Sunday, with the exact timeframe for restoring the electricity supply in Kharkiv unknown.1,4
