Russia has opened a dedicated campaign of massive strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, the country's top general told President Vladimir Putin on Friday — and overnight, the campaign arrived: more than 330 drones and missiles rained down on power generation and transmission sites across 10 Ukrainian regions.
Ukraine's air force said Russia attacked between 7 p.m. Friday and 7 a.m. Saturday with 332 attack drones — including 31 jet-powered Shaheds — alongside loitering munitions, four Kalibr cruise missiles, Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missiles, and Kh-22/32 cruise missiles. Air defences shot down or suppressed 293 targets, including all four Kalibrs and 289 drones, but impacts were recorded at 22 locations, with debris falling at three more. More than 15 generation and transmission facilities were hit, with the worst damage in Lutsk, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Shepetivka, Slavuta, and Netishyn.
"The Russians have scaled up their anti-energy operation and are trying to stretch our reserves and repair capabilities as thin as possible."
The human cost landed far from the power plants. In Kherson's Korabelniy district, a strike killed a 64-year-old emergency medical driver, regional head Yaroslav Shanko said. Across the country, 22 people were wounded, including two children, and in Sumy one person was killed and seven wounded. In Slovyansk, aerial bombs hit two apartment buildings, killing one person and wounding 10 more.
Ukraine's Energy Ministry said power had been restored to more than a million consumers during Friday and to another 500,000 by Saturday morning, even as hourly outage schedules were imposed in several regions and industrial users were limited nationwide. The Kremlin frames the campaign as a planned operation against energy and military-industrial targets, aimed at cutting Ukraine's long-range weapons production. It comes days after a Trump-announced "energy ceasefire" collapsed into dispute — and with winter approaching, Kyiv says the goal is to leave millions of people without electricity and heating.
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