Russia has battered Ukraine’s power grid again in the hours before US-brokered peace talks, leaving more than 600,000 people without electricity and cutting heat and water to cities already bracing for winter.
Key Points
- Russia Ukraine Abu Dhabi talks — Russian strikes hit power substations across Ukraine hours before delegations meet in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.
- More than 600,000 people lost power in the Dnipropetrovsk region alone, with Kyiv’s three million residents down to two or three hours of electricity a day.
- Ukraine hit back at Russia’s Kirishi oil refinery, one of the country’s biggest, setting it on fire.
- The EU has activated a special emergency mechanism to speed up funding for Ukraine’s power grid repairs.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Monday it had targeted four electrical substations in the Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Cherkasy and Vinnytsia regions. Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 317 drones of various types overnight, including 105 jet-powered drones, alongside more than 30 ballistic missiles. Twelve regions came under attack, with Kyiv hit hardest. Nine people were hurt across the country, including one child.
The strikes are part of Russia’s campaign to deny Ukrainian civilians heating, light and running water as winter approaches. In Kyiv, residents are living with only two to three hours of electricity a day, without heating and with intermittent water, because pumping systems also depend on the grid. Substations connecting the Rivne and Khmelnytsky nuclear power plants to Kyiv and central Ukraine were damaged, and heating was cut to 140 residential buildings in the Zhytomyr region as temperatures approached zero.
A grid hit more than 350 times
Ukraine’s energy minister, Denys Shmyhal, said the country’s power grid has been hit more than 350 times since September. The DTEK energy company reported damage to major facilities in the Dnipropetrovsk region, leaving more than 600,000 people without electricity, while authorities in the Kharkiv region said a Russian drone strike on critical infrastructure cut power to about 250,000 customers.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow was stepping up its bombardment specifically to weaken Kyiv’s hand ahead of the negotiations. He said he had spoken to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and that the EU had agreed to activate a special emergency mechanism to speed up funding for power grid repairs. “Right now, many of our cities and communities are facing a very difficult situation with power, water, and heating supplies due to Russian strikes,” he wrote.
Ukraine, meanwhile, struck back at Russia’s energy sector. A Ukrainian drone attack set fire to the Kirishi refinery in the Leningrad region, Russia’s second-largest oil refinery, after air defences downed 113 drones overnight. Zelenskyy has said Ukraine will keep targeting Russia’s refineries in response to the energy strikes — and is ready to halt those attacks if Russia stops hitting energy targets.
What happens next
Delegations from Moscow and Kyiv are due to meet in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday and Wednesday for two days of US-mediated talks on how to end the fighting, with American special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner leading the Washington delegation. The talks will look at what security guarantees would satisfy Russia, which sees NATO as a threat, and Ukraine, which wants to prevent future invasions.
Moscow says European officials will not be involved, but France’s foreign minister said on Sunday that France and other European representatives would be in the United Arab Emirates. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, attending a G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Paris on Monday, said progress had been made on a postwar security architecture for Ukraine. Whether the strikes on the grid harden Kyiv’s position — or push its allies to send more air defences — will be clear within days.
For background on Kyiv’s hopes for the new Congress, see our report on Zelenskyy hoping a Democratic Congress brings more Ukraine aid, and on the Kremlin excluding European nations from Ukraine discussions. More in our World News section.
Sources: The Economic Times, “A day before US-brokered talks, Russia and Ukraine batter each other with long-range strikes“; The Tribune, “EU activates special emergency mechanism to fund Ukraine’s critical power, water and heating needs after Russian strikes: Zelenskyy“.