Russian strikes on Ukraine leave 850,000 without power as Zelenskyy reports drone attack on Komyshuvakha
Zelenskyy said Russia had launched a drone strike on the site of a recent attack on Komyshuvakha, where rescuers have been carrying out search operations following a bombing that killed at least 55 people on Monday.
Russian strikes on Ukraine overnight reportedly left more than 850,000 people without power across the country.
Ukrainian energy firm DTEK said Russian forces had launched a "massive attack" on Ukraine's energy sector, targeting key facilities in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region.
"Over 600,000 residents of the region in the Pavlohrad, Samar, Kamianske and Dnipro districts, as well as in the city of Dnipro itself, have been left without power," the company said. Power is gradually being restored in the region, authorities later announced.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy added that there were widespread power outages across the nation, including in Kharkiv Oblast in the northeast and the Zhytomyr region in the northwest, where he said 140 apartment buildings were without heating following a Russian strike.
Local authorities in Kharkiv reported that around 250,000 customers in the region had been left without power but that it had since been restored.
Russia has once again begun to ramp up attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure as winter draws nearer, capitalising on Kyiv's shortage of interceptor missiles as it seeks to break Ukraine's resistance.
Over the past week, Zelenskyy said Russian forces have fired 115 missiles, almost 1,900 guided aerial bombs, and more than 3,000 attack drones against Ukraine.
On Sunday morning, Zelenskyy said Russia had also launched a drone strike on the site of a recent attack on Komyshuvakha, where rescuers have been carrying out search operations following a bombing that killed at least 55 people on Monday.
"Unfortunately, more people may still be under the rubble. Absolute cynicism and brutality," the Ukrainian leader wrote on X.
Ukraine's State Emergency Service said Russia had "deliberately attacked" emergency service workers at the site but that no one had been injured.
The Monday strikes, which hit a school Kyiv said was used for humanitarian purposes, followed a rare localised truce between Kyiv and Moscow that had allowed evacuees to leave the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky in Ukraine's southern Kherson region.
One person was also killed and three others were injured in a strike on a residential area of Dnipro on Sunday, per Oleksandr Hanzha, the head of the regional military administration.
"A fire has broken out. At least one private house has been destroyed. It is believed that people may be trapped under the rubble," he said.
Zelenskyy has accused the Kremlin of intensifying attacks in a bid to put additional pressure on Ukraine's negotiating position ahead of planned trilateral talks between Kyiv, Moscow and Washington in Abu Dhabi.
