Rare Blackouts Hit Southern Odessa Region Amid Russia’s Pre-Winter Strikes

Rare blackouts have occurred in Ukraine’s southern Odessa region – a place which has largely been spared from sustained fighting – given the vital port is all the way to the south, across from the border with NATO member Romania.

This latest overnight Russian assault again targeted Ukraine’s energy grid ahead of winter, with hundreds of thousands of households losing power in the attack.

“Last night, the enemy attacked energy and civilian infrastructure in the Odesa region,” regional governor Oleh Kiper confirmed on Telegram. “Power engineers are making every effort to fully restore the power supply,” he added.

To give a sense of just how vast the outage was, Ukrainian energy firm DTEK later said it was able to restore power to over 240,000 households in the region, but with many more still in need of help.

Just within the 24-hour prior, the Kyiv area also experienced rare blackouts, along with many other regions, after a key electrical generation plant was directly struck by either missiles or drones.

Reuters has attempted to calculate the scale of the prior Thursday to Friday overnight attack as follows:

The Russian massive attack on Ukraine’s energy system on Friday caused temporary power cuts to more than one million consumers across the country, Reuters calculations based on local authorities data showed.

At least 420,000 families in the capital of Kyiv were affected, Ukrainian private energy firm DTEK said, announcing that power was restored.

President Zelensky called that prior major aerial assault on the capital a “cynical and calculated attack” and there are reports that a seven-year old boy was killed.

Russia has at this begun to launch missile and drones into Ukraine into the hundreds on a nightly basis, mainly targeting energy sites but also military centers. But these projectiles frequently also hit residential buildings and civilian neighborhoods.

The attacks have gone the other way too, but with less devastation. Ukraine has been sending drones into Russian territory nightly, frequently hitting oil facilities and manufacturing centers.