Ukraine faces blackouts up to 16 hours after Russian strikes cripple energy grid

Ukraine will face major power cuts ranging from eight to 16 hours across most regions on Sunday, state grid operator Ukrenergo announced, after Russian attacks reduced significant portions of the country’s generating capacity to “zero”. The warning follows one of the most severe waves of strikes on Ukraine’s power infrastructure since the full-scale invasion began nearly four years ago.

From Friday into Saturday, Russia launched hundreds of drones and missiles at energy facilities across Ukraine in a coordinated assault that killed at least seven people, according to officials in Kyiv. The scale and intensity of the strikes caused widespread disruptions to electricity, heating and water systems, with state power firm Centerenergo saying its generating capacity had been completely knocked out.

Ukrenergo said emergency repairs and rerouting of energy loads had helped stabilise the system to a degree, but warned that rolling outages would continue as winter approaches. Energy Minister Svitlana Grynchuk said regions including Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Poltava, Chernigiv and Sumy were likely to face a prolonged period of scheduled cuts.

“The enemy inflicted a massive strike with ballistic missiles, which are extremely difficult to shoot down. It is hard to recall such a number of direct strikes on energy facilities since the beginning of the invasion,” Grynchuk told Ukrainian broadcaster United News.

Kyiv also accused Moscow of dramatically escalating risks to nuclear safety. Foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said Russian drones targeted two nuclear power substations in western Ukraine that supply the Khmelnytskyi and Rivne nuclear plants — facilities located roughly 120km and 95km from Lutsk. “Russia is deliberately endangering nuclear safety in Europe,” Sybiha said, calling for an urgent meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors.

He also urged China and India, both major buyers of Russian oil, to pressure Moscow to halt such attacks.

Experts say the latest strikes could trigger severe heating outages as temperatures drop. Russia has repeatedly targeted Ukraine’s power grid since 2022, destroying large sections of civilian infrastructure and forcing emergency blackouts across the country. Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state energy firm, said the weekend assault was the ninth large-scale attack on gas infrastructure since early October. A report by Kyiv’s School of Economics estimates that roughly half of Ukraine’s natural gas production has already been knocked offline.

Energy analyst Oleksandr Kharchenko warned that Kyiv could face a “technological disaster” if its two main power-and-heating plants were to go offline for more than three days during severe cold spells, particularly if temperatures fall below –10°C.

Meanwhile, Russia said on Sunday that its air defences had destroyed 44 Ukrainian drones overnight, according to figures released by the defence ministry through the RIA news agency.