Power Cut For Half A Million Russians By Ukrainian Drone Strikes

Half a million Russians across a number of areas lost electrical power, with some also losing water and heat after Ukrainian drone strikes targeted Russian energy infrastructure in retaliation for ongoing Russian attacks on civilian Ukrainian targets. 

The latest Ukrainian hits underscore the degree to which Russia can no longer adequately defend itself from drone or missile attacks, which also provides evidence that the Kremlin narrative about the success of Russia's war effort is false. JL

Antonia Langford reports in The Telegraph:

Ukraine cut the power for half a million people in Russia after the largest drone attack of the war. Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, said that Ukraine’s retaliatory assault had caused “serious damage” to energy infrastructure. 500,000 people across numerous districts suffered power outages, while many were also left without water and heating as temperatures hovered around freezing, adding that it would take several days to repair the facilities.

Ukraine cut the power for almost half a million people in Russia after the largest drone attack of the war.

Kyiv launched almost 400 drones, Moscow said on Wednesday, after Russia fired nearly 1,000 drones at Ukraine during 24 hours starting on Monday night.

The Russian attacks killed eight people across the country, hit the centre of Lviv and residential houses in western Ukraine during rush hour on Tuesday evening.

Moscow’s defence ministry claimed its air defences had shot down 389 Ukrainian drones that were travelling over 13 Russian regions and Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

But Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, close to the border with Ukraine, said that Ukraine’s retaliatory assault had caused “serious damage” to energy infrastructure.

Almost 500,000 people across numerous districts suffered power outages, while many were also left without water and heating as temperatures hovered around freezing, he said, adding that it would take several days to repair the facilities.

A power plant in Estonia was also hit by a drone that had flown into the Nato member state from Russian airspace, while another crashed into Latvia, with officials in Riga saying it was likely that a Ukrainian drone had gone astray.

 

Owing to its proximity to Kyiv’s forces, Belgorod is frequently hit by cross-border attacks and has suffered recurring outages of electricity, water and heating.

Since the start of 2026, Russia has also launched hundreds of attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

On Wednesday, 150,000 people in Chernihiv, the northern Ukrainian city near the Belarusian border, were similarly left without power. 

Russian attacks throughout Wednesday night killed an 87-year-old woman and wounded another civilian in the southern region of Odesa, causing damage to half a dozen residential buildings.

Ukraine bombarded Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga with drones, leaving a large fire blazing at the crucial oil export hub, as part of what is thought to be its largest wave of drone attacks on Moscow’s infrastructure so far this year.

Over the course of the attack, 56 drones were downed by air defence and electronic warfare systems, Alexander Drozdenko, the regional governor, said on Telegram.

Two days before, after a previous round of attacks, the Baltic Sea port and the export hub of Primorsk had been forced to suspend operations.

Ust-Luga handles around 700,000 barrels of oil exports a day, while the Primorsk port some 50 miles away can export more than one million a day.

Kyiv has intensified its attacks on Russian oil refineries and export routes since the start of the year, which has coincided with a surge in Moscow’s oil revenues last month, driven by war in the Middle East.

This month, Russian daily oil export revenues doubled from their January sum of around £101m to approximately £202m, hitting a four-year high, according to Bloomberg.

On Tuesday, Ukraine’s military intelligence said that it had destroyed a Zircon hypersonic missile launcher in Crimea and had damaged other military kit.

After Russia launched its largest aerial attack on Ukraine on Tuesday, Baltic authorities reported that three foreign drones had entered their airspace.

Estonia said one drone had strayed from Russian airspace and crashed into a smokestack at its Auvere power plant shortly after midnight on Wednesday. 

Latvia said two drones had entered its territory, one from Russia and the other from Belarus, forcing it to deploy air defence and sparking at least one explosion around 2.30am.

Military officials from both countries said the drones’ manufacturer and country of origin had not yet been determined, but Evika Silina, the Latvian prime minister, said in a post on X that preliminary information suggested that the drone that crashed on the country’s territory may have been Ukrainian.