Ukrainian drone strikes have killed three people in Russia’s Belgorod region, while attacks cut power to multiple cities in Ukraine and parts of Russian-occupied Crimea, officials reported. Local Russian authorities in Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, announced the three deaths on Wednesday. In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia’s overnight attacks damaged power generation facilities and substations in nine regions leaving emergency outages in many cities.
Russia’s Defence Ministry confirmed on Telegram that it hit two power stations in Ukraine’s Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions. Ukraine has repeatedly said Moscow is targeting its energy grid as temperatures drop before winter. Overnight, Russian attacks on critical infrastructure caused hours-long power and water outages across Kyiv and surrounding regions.
Residents in the capital were urged to use public drinking water fountains, and emergency centres offering hot tea and power points to charge devices were set up in the worst-hit areas. There were also power outages in Crimea, the peninsula Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014, home to approximately 2.5 million residents. Russia’s Ministry of Energy said Ukrainian strikes hit energy infrastructure overnight and that temporary outage schedules were in force.
It did not say how many households were affected. But reports also indicated that Russia-held Crimea ordered power cuts after an accident outside the region, a Moscow-installed official said, according to the news agency. In addition to the capital, Kyiv, Russia also hit the regions of Poltava, Dnipro, Kirovohrad and Rivne, reported, citing Ukraine’s emergency service and local officials. In southern Russia, a Ukrainian drone attack started a fire at a major warehouse belonging to Ozon, known as Russia’s Amazon.
The strikes were on an Ozon distribution facility in the town of Adygeysk, in the Republic of Adygea, regional head Murat Kumpilov said. Ozon said all workers were evacuated and no one was hurt, and that it had removed damaged goods from its listings and rerouted deliveries. Russia’s Defence Ministry also said it downed 709 Ukrainian drones across 14 regions, Crimea and the Black and Azov seas.
Amid ongoing fighting between Russia and Ukraine, Russia’s Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin hopes United States President Donald Trump will continue his peace efforts after a sweeping Democratic victory in the congressional midterms dealt a blow to the president. We sincerely hope that he will also continue his peacemaking efforts,” Peskov said in a statement. Whether a change in Congress could hinder Trump’s peace efforts, Peskov said, as cited by the state-run Interfax news outlet, that it was “an internal matter for America”.
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