Fresh barrage and cascading blackouts
Russia launched another wave of drones and missiles at Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, forcing rolling blackouts and emergency load-shedding across all regions. Officials said air defenses intercepted many inbound threats, but strikes that slipped through damaged substations and transmission lines. The prime minister called it “systematic energy terror,” a campaign timed for colder months to sap resilience and raise repair costs. Grid operator Ukrenergo urged households to conserve power and warned industry of curtailment windows as crews worked to reroute electricity and replace transformers.

Winter readiness and international support
The attacks revive a familiar playbook from past winters: hit generation and high-voltage nodes, then exploit repair windows to strike again. Ukraine is accelerating mobile generation deployments and modular substations, but long-lead equipment remains scarce. European partners prepared emergency shipments of components and pledged more air-defense interceptors. Analysts say grid hardening—underground cable runs, decoys, and distributed generation—can blunt impact, yet costs are steep and timelines tight. For consumers, the near-term reality is rationing, diesel backup, and unpredictable outage maps until critical nodes are restored and defended.