Drone cut power to over 200,000 homes in Russian-occupied Ukraine

KYIV: Hundreds of thousands in Russian-occupied parts of southern Ukraine were left without power on Sunday, according to Kremlin-installed authorities there. Meanwhile, Moscow has kept up its hammering of Ukraine’s energy grid in overnight attacks that killed at least two people, according to Ukrainian officials.

More than 200,000 households in the Russian-held part of Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region had no electricity on Sunday, according to the Kremlin-installed local governor.

In a Telegram post, Yevgeny Balitsky said nearly 400 settlements have had their supply cut, due to damage to power networks from Ukrainian drone strikes.

Russia has hammered Ukraine’s power grid, especially in winter, throughout the almost four-year war. It aims to weaken Ukrainians’ will to resist in a strategy that Kyiv officials call “weaponising winter.”

Russia targeted energy infrastructure in Odesa region overnight on Sunday, according to Ukraine’s Emergency Service. A fire broke out and was promptly extinguished.

At least six people were injured in the Dnipropetrovsk region because of Russian attacks, the emergency service said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post that repairing the country’s energy system remains challenging, “but we are doing everything we can to restore everything as quickly as possible.”