One million without heat and water after Russian strikes, Ukraine says
Russian drone strikes on Ukraine overnight have left more than one million people in the southeastern region of Dnipropetrovsk without heating and water supplies, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister says.
Oleksiy Kuleba added that work was continuing to restore services following the large-scale attack, which damaged infrastructure across the southeast.
Electricity supplies were also disrupted for thousands more people in neighbouring Zaporizhzhia, state grid operator Ukrenergo said late on Wednesday. It has since been restored, according to the energy ministry.
Russia has recently intensified attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, aimed at paralysing power supplies during a harsh winter.
“Repair work continues in Dnipropetrovsk region to restore heat and water supply for more than one million subscribers,” Kuleba said in a statement on Telegram.
Hospitals, water facilities and other critical services were operating on backup systems, the energy ministry said, while residents were urged to limit electricity use to avoid further strain on the grid.
“Ukraine’s energy system is under enemy attacks every day, and energy workers are operating in extremely difficult conditions to provide people with light and heat,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko wrote on Telegram, adding that deteriorating weather conditions were compounding pressure on critical infrastructure.
Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation, described the attacks as a “deliberate terror against the civilian population and an attempt to create a humanitarian catastrophe”.
DTEK, Ukraine’s biggest private energy provider, is living in permanent crisis mode because of Russian attacks on the grid, its chief executive told the BBC last month, with most of Ukraine suffering from lengthy power cuts during winter.
Maxim Timchenko, CEO of DTEK, which provides power for 5.6 million Ukrainians, said the intensity of strikes had been so frequent “we just don’t have time to recover”.
As the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion approaches, Timchenko said Russia had repeatedly targeted DTEK’s energy grid with “waves of drones, cruise and ballistic missiles” and his company had found it difficult to cope.
The attacks come as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said European allies have not given him sound guarantees that they will protect his country in the event of new Russian aggression.
Following talks in Paris on Tuesday, the UK and France signed a declaration of intent on deploying troops in Ukraine if a peace deal is reached – a move Moscow warned would make foreign forces a “legitimate target”.
Zelensky also said he believes Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine could be brought to an end in the first half of 2026. Speaking at the opening of Cyprus’s presidency of the Council of the European Union, he said negotiations with European partners and the United States had entered a new stage and stressed that the EU should play a central role in any settlement.
