Ukrainian drone strikes cut power to hundreds of thousands in Russia-occupied southern Ukraine

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian drone strikes damaged energy networks in Russia-occupied parts of southern Ukraine, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power on Sunday, according to Kremlin-installed authorities there.

Meanwhile, Moscow has kept up its hammering of Ukraine’s energy grid in overnight attacks that killed at least two people, according to Ukrainian officials.

More than 200,000 households in the Russia-held part of Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region had no electricity on Sunday, according to the Kremlin-installed local governor.

In a Telegram post, Yevgeny Balitsky said that nearly 400 settlements have had their supply cut, because of damage to power networks from Ukrainian drone strikes.

Russia has hammered Ukraine’s power grid, especially in winter, throughout the nearly four-year war. The strikes aim to weaken Ukrainians’ will to resist in a strategy that Kyiv officials call “weaponizing winter.”

Russia targeted energy infrastructure in Odesa region overnight on Sunday, according to Ukraine’s Emergency Service. A fire broke out and was promptly extinguished.

At least six people were wounded in the Dnipropetrovsk region from Russian attacks, the emergency service said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post that repairing the country’s energy system remains challenging, “but we are doing everything we can to restore everything as quickly as possible.”

He said that two people were killed in overnight attacks across the country that struck Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi and Odesa.

In total, more than 1,300 attack drones, 1,050 guided aerial bombs and 29 missiles of various types were used by Russia to strike Ukraine this week, Zelenskyy said.

“If Russia deliberately delays the diplomatic process, the world’s response should be decisive: more help for Ukraine and more pressure on the aggressor," Zelenskyy said.

He spoke the day after a Ukrainian delegation arrived in the United States for talks on a U.S.-led diplomatic push to end the war.

On Friday, Zelenskyy said that the delegation would try to finalize with U.S. officials documents for a proposed peace settlement that relate to postwar security guarantees and economic recovery.

If American officials approve the proposals, the U.S. and Ukraine could sign the documents next week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Zelenskyy said at a Kyiv news conference with Czech President Petr Pavel. Trump plans to be in Davos, according to organizers.

Russia would still need to be consulted on the proposals.

Separately, in Russia’s Caucasus mountains, two children and an adult were wounded overnight as debris from a Ukrainian drone fell on a five-story residential building in North Ossetia, according to the regional governor.

Seventy people had to be evacuated from the building, in the town of Beslan, and there was damage to its roof and windows, Gov. Sergei Menyaylo said in a Telegram post on Sunday morning.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that its forces shot down or suppressed 63 Ukrainian drones overnight over Russia and the occupied Crimean Peninsula. One person was hospitalized in Russia’s Krasnodar region east of Crimea following a drone strike, local authorities said.

Ukrainian crews have started repair works on the backup power line connecting the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to the power grid, under a ceasefire brokered by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based U.N. organization said in an X post on Sunday.

The fate of the plant, occupied by Russia and the largest in Europe, is a central issue in ongoing U.S.-brokered peace talks.

“Crucial repair works on the essential back up Ferosplavna-1 330 kV power line connecting Ukraine’s ZNPP to the grid have begun under another IAEA-brokered ceasefire,” the agency said in the post.

The 330-kilovolt power line, which was damaged and disconnected because of fighting, is crucial to supplying the plant with electricity.