Ukraine reports outages after Russia hits electrical power facilities, including major hydroelectric plant – Technologist

Russia attacked electrical power facilities in much of Ukraine, including the country’s largest hydroelectric plant, causing widespread outages and killing at least five people, officials said on Friday, March 22. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said more than 60 drones and about 90 rockets were used in the attack.

The attack came a day after Russia launched 31 missiles in a single attack on the capital. It was the largest assault on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure this year and one of the largest since the outbreak of the war, according to Ukrainian authorities. “Even last winter, attacks on our energy system were not as large as they were this night,” said the head of energy utility Ukrenergo, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi.

The attacks caused a fire at the Dnipro Hydroelectric Station, which supplies electricity to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power installation. The main external power line to the plant was cut off, International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi said early Friday, but Ukraine’s nuclear energy operator said it was restored several hours later. The plant is occupied by Russian troops, and fighting around the plant has been a constant concern because of the potential for a nuclear accident.

The dam at the hydroelectric station was not in danger of breaching, the country’s hydroelectric authority said. A dam breach could not only disrupt supplies to the nuclear plant but would potentially cause severe flooding similar to what occurred last year when a major dam at Kakhovka further down the Dnieper collapsed.

Areas across the wartorn country reported blackouts, including at least 200,000 in the western Khmelnytsky region and around 260,000 in the southern region of Odesa.

Russia said earlier it had launched a series of “massive” air strikes against Ukraine as retaliation for Ukrainian attacks on its border regions over recent weeks. It has targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure throughout the war, now in its third year, in strikes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called “energy terrorism.”

Kharkiv ‘cut off’

A Russian missile attack has “completely” cut off the electricity and heat supply to Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, its mayor said.

“The city is completely without power and as a result the water and heating supply are not working,” Kharkiv mayor Igor Terekhov said in a video on his social media. “Utilities and power engineers need time to cope with the challenges posed by this hostile shelling… I ask everyone to stay calm and remain patient,” he said in a post.