More than 600,000 left with no power in Ukraine after strikes, authorities say

Hundreds of thousands of people were left without power after Russian strikes hit Ukraine's energy infrastructure, authorities said on Sunday. In the central Dnipropetrovsk region, "more than 600,000 residents of the region have been left without power," power company DTEK reported after a "night attack has damaged important energy facilities".

The company said it was working to restore electricity but the task was "complicated by repeated attacks." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy previously accused Russia of ramping up attacks on Ukraine ahead of trilateral talks next week with Russia.

Widespread Outages

In another strike, a Russian drone hit "a critical infrastructure facility" in the northeastern Kharkiv region, according to Mykola Baksheyev, the mayor of Zlatopil city. "Nearly 250,000 customers in the Kharkiv region were left without power," Baksheyev said on social media.

Zelenskyy also reported that in the Zhytomyr region alone, 140 apartment buildings were left without heating following a Russian strike, as temperatures in Ukraine already hovered around freezing.

Deadly Attack

The strikes came a day after Ukraine's energy ministry reported a massive attack on energy facilities that plunged residents in five regions into darkness and significantly hampered electricity transmission in Kyiv. Zelenskyy also addressed a separate attack on Komyshuvakha, a village in the Zaporizhzhia region where Moscow had hit an aid distribution center on Monday.

"This morning, the Russians attacked Komyshuvakha with an FPV drone, where emergency rescue operations have been underway for seven days," Zelenskyy said. "Unfortunately, more people may still be under the rubble." The death toll from that attack has risen to 55 people, according to Zelenskyy, with emergency services previously reporting 50 killed.