Russian strikes cut power to hundreds of thousands in Ukraine

KYIV, (Ukraine): Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure cut power to hundreds of thousands of homes Sunday, authorities said, while a new drone hit a village humanitarian aid centre attacked this week where rescuers are still digging out bodies.

Ukraine is bracing for a harsh new winter of war as Russia ramps up daily aerial barrages, raining down drones and missiles on the power network.

In the central Dnipropetrovsk region, “more than 600,000 residents of the region have been left without power,” power company DTEK said on Telegram after a “night attack has damaged important energy facilities”.

It said the company was working to restore electricity but the task was “complicated by repeated attacks”.

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.

“Nearly 250,000 customers in the Kharkiv region were left without power,” Baksheyev said.

Repair works were underway but “the exact time for restoring power supply is still unknown,” he added.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the night-time strikes had triggered “widespread power outages across the country”.

“In the Zhytomyr region alone, 140 apartment buildings were left without heating following a Russian strike,” he said, as temperatures in Ukraine already hovered around freezing.

He also said Russia had launched a drone at Komyshuvakha — a village in the Zaporizhzhia region where Moscow had hit an aid distribution centre on Monday in one of the deadliest attacks of the war.

The death toll has risen to 55 people, Zelensky said. Emergency services previously put it at 50 killed.