Russian Strikes Plunge Southeastern Ukraine Into Near-Total Blackouts

Late on Wednesday night and into the early hours of Thursday, waves of Russian drone and missile strikes hit energy infrastructure across southeastern Ukraine, cutting power supplies almost entirely in the industrial Dnipropetrovsk and neighbouring Zaporizhzhia regions, Ukraine’s energy ministry said. The ministry described the two regions as being “almost entirely” without electricity and said hospitals and other critical services were operating on reserve power.

Officials said the impact was immediate and widespread. Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said repair crews were intensifying work to restore heat and water to more than 1 million consumers in Dnipropetrovsk. Early on Thursday the energy ministry reported nearly 800,000 consumers in the region remained without electricity, while DTEK, the country’s largest private power provider, gave a later count of nearly 500,000 households without power. DTEK supplies power to some 5.6 million Ukrainians and its CEO has described the business as operating in “permanent crisis mode.”

Zaporizhzhia’s power was reported being restored by Thursday morning, but the region’s governor, Ivan Fedorov, called it the first total blackout his region had faced “in recent years,” posting on Telegram that it had been “a difficult night for the region. But ‘light’ always wins.” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the strikes were aimed at “breaking” Ukraine, framing the attacks as part of a broader campaign to degrade civilian resilience.

The strikes disrupted medical services, transport and water systems. Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov said all city hospitals had been switched to generators, and at least eight mines in Dnipropetrovsk lost power, forcing evacuations. Water supplies to the strategic city of Pavlohrad and nearby towns could take up to a day to repair, regional officials warned. Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said more than 1,500 charging and heating points had been set up across Dnipropetrovsk to help residents cope.

State grid operator Ukrenergo said emergency restoration work would begin immediately “as soon as the security situation allows,” highlighting the tension between the urgent need to repair damaged lines and the risk to crews while strikes are ongoing. Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko cautioned that an incoming cold snap with subzero temperatures and snowfall would likely compound the humanitarian toll.

The pattern of attacks, using drones, cruise and ballistic missiles, has left Ukraine’s energy sector in repeated crisis and raised broader international concerns. Targeting power and water systems at scale risks severe civilian hardship and, under international humanitarian law, indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks on civilian infrastructure are forbidden. Kyiv and its Western partners say Moscow has intensified pressure on Ukraine by striking critical utilities even as frontline fighting and diplomatic efforts continue.

For now the outage figures remain fluid as teams assess damage, repair timelines and safety conditions for workers. Authorities warn that full restoration will depend on access to damaged transmission and generation assets and on whether security conditions stabilize sufficiently to allow sustained reconstruction. The immediate priority remains keeping hospitals, heating points and water supplies functioning as the region braces for freezing weather.