Ukraine said it came under attack from 69 Russian drones overnight, including 29 that hit targets in 12 locations in the south, north and east of the country.
Among the places struck was the Odessa region surrounding the Black Sea port of the same name, with two waves of drones damaging transportation and other infrastructure that Ukrainian officials did not name.
Officials today said 28,000 people in Odessa region still are without power following a massive Russian drone and missile strike late Friday and early Saturday that caused a blackout affecting some 1 million people. Heat and water also were widely knocked out in one of the biggest air attacks of the war on the region.
The attacks last night and over the weekend were indicative of Russia’s current campaign to cripple the Ukrainian power grid as freezing winter conditions set in.
Massive missile and drone attacks mainly targeting the power grid have occurred approximately every 10 days since October, with smaller attacks occurring nightly, particularly in Odessa region and eastern and northern regions relatively close to Russian-controlled territory.
Western media reported this week that transmission systems from the western half of Ukraine, where most electricity is stored, to the eastern half of the country are perilously close to being ruptured, potentially causing a complete blackout.
Kyiv is considered at risk of the same fate as much of the east. In a taste of what may lie ahead, half the capital was without power on 10 December following massive overnight drone and missile strikes on nearby electricity infrastructure.
Lengthy power outages are now routine in Kyiv and the rest of Ukraine due to both constant Russian attacks on the grid and the desperate effort of authorities to ration electricity.
Russia also is relentlessly attacking natural gas infrastructure with the aim of depriving Ukrainian civilians of heat and cooking fuel this winter.
Ukraine has imported large volumes of natural gas from Europe and stored it safely underground, but Russia keeps hitting compressor stations, pipelines and other above-ground infrastructure.
Ukrainian cities and towns rely on centralized heat, and no large-scale alternatives are available.
Russia has sharply escalated overnight missile and drone attacks since May, including against Kyiv, with high civilian death tolls occurring occasionally and people injured almost every night.
The chief concern is that hundreds of thousands of people could flee the country by road and rail in a short period due to heat and electricity outages, jamming border crossings.
There have been no commercial flights to Ukraine since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022.
Personnel should avoid Ukraine entirely.
