Ukrainian power workers restored electricity to nearly 1 million people in Kyiv and other areas, as officials braced for further Russian air strikes that have already severely damaged power generation and gas supplies.
The Black Sea port city of Odesa, meanwhile, suffered widespread power outages overnight on October 11 after a Russian strike similar to the one a day earlier that plunged wide swathes of the Ukrainian capital into darkness.
With Russia’s all-out war now in its 44th month, officials have warned that Russia intends to exhaust the country by targeting critical energy infrastructure with the onset of cold weather across Ukraine.
Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko described the October 10 attack as “one of the largest concentrated strikes” against the country’s energy grid. Kyiv was badly hit, and at least 20 people were wounded.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed the strikes had targeted energy facilities supplying Ukraine’s military, saying it had used hypersonic missiles and strike drones against them.
Utility workers restored power to more than 800,000 Kyiv residents on October 11, the country’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said.
“The main work to restore the power supply” had been completed, the company said in a post to Telegram,but warned of some localized outages.
Kyiv officials said surface transport — tram and trolleybus service – had resumed operations.
Odesa, Ukraine’s main Black Sea port, was hit by Russian drones early October 11, knocking out power to more than 240,000 households. DTEK said utility workers managed to resume power supplies by mid-morning on October 11.
At least one person was reported wounded in the attacks, said Oleg Kiper, the head of regional military administration.
In the northern region of Chernihiv, a second utility worker working to restore electricity died after being hit in a Russian “double tap” drone strike — where a second air strike targets emergency or utility workers responding to an initial strike.
Russia has frequently employed double tap strikes throughout its war.
Four more workers were wounded in the attack, said Vyacheslav Chaus, head of the regional military administration.
At least two more people, including a 4-year-old girl, were killed in Russian shelling that struck the territory of a church in Kostyantynivka, located in Ukraine’s war-torn Donetsk region, Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, said.
Local police said a 2-year-old child of the priest was found at the scene in the aftermath. The child’s mother had died in Russian strikes last week, the statement added.
Ukrainian officials have pleaded with Western allies to increase their supplies of air defense weaponry.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked Washington to supply more Patriot air defense systems, which are considered the only system capable of intercepting Russian missiles.
In a “positive and productive” phone call on October 11, Zelenskyy said he and US President Donald Trump discussed Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure .
“We discussed opportunities to bolster our air defense, as well as concrete agreements that we are working on to ensure this. There are good options and solid ideas on how to truly strengthen us,” he said in a post to X.
There was no immediate comment on the phone call from the White House.
With reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian and Russian services
