Russia hits Ukraine's power grid before winter, and Kyiv cuts electricity

Russia struck Ukraine's energy grid on Wednesday in the heaviest combined attack on power sites in months, and the capital imposed emergency electricity cuts for the first time since spring. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the barrage included nearly 190 drones and ballistic missiles, and that seven people were killed across the country, including a child. The air force said it shot down five missiles and 155 drones.

Ukrenergo, the state grid operator, ordered emergency cuts in Kyiv and three surrounding regions. Residents woke to fog and smoke. Authorities said a key power plant and other energy facilities around the capital were damaged, and told people in several districts to keep windows closed until the smoke cleared. An air-raid alert was still running after dawn. DTEK, the largest private energy firm, said power had been restored to 8,000 homes in the capital after what it called a difficult night.

The Russian defence ministry said one target was the Trypilska thermal power station, about 40 kilometres from Kyiv, and claimed the plant supplied electricity to defence facilities. Trypilska is the largest thermal supplier to the capital. Ukraine's prime minister, Serhiy Koretskyi, called the strike the largest on energy infrastructure since spring and said at least five people had been killed, including a child in the Kyiv region. Zelenskyy's count of seven dead, given later in the day, is the higher figure. Both include the child.

Zelenskyy said critical infrastructure was hit in Zhytomyr, Mykolaiv, Kirovohrad and Rivne, with further damage reported in five other regions. The energy ministry said households in Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Sumy and Kharkiv were still without power on Wednesday. The pattern is the one grid engineers have described in each of the past three winters: a mixed salvo aimed at generation and at the substations that move power into cities, timed for the weeks before heating demand rises.

The difference this year is the state of the repair stock. Trypilska was heavily damaged in 2024 and brought back in reduced form. A fresh hit on the same site, if the Russian claim holds, lands on a plant that has already been rebuilt once. Emergency cuts of the kind Ukrenergo ordered on Wednesday are a rationing tool, not a blackout. They mean the operator can no longer meet demand in the capital region without disconnecting blocks of customers. The last time Kyiv lived under that regime was in the spring.

Air defence numbers explain why some missiles arrived. Five ballistic missiles and 155 drones shot down, against a launch Zelenskyy put at nearly 190 drones and ballistic missiles, leaves a remainder large enough to hit a plant and a set of substations. Ukraine has spent the year asking for more interceptors. The September sale cleared by Washington, covering S-300 clone missiles and counter-drone radars, is still inside the congressional review window and does not change Wednesday's tally.

Winter is the constraint. Heating load rises in October. A grid that is already shedding customers in the capital on 30 September has less margin than it did in August. The open question is whether Wednesday's salvo was the start of a series, as Ukrainian officials said they had expected, or a single heavy night. The dead are already counted. The plants are not yet fully assessed.