Russia Hits Six Power Substations

A high-voltage power line tower near Knyazhichi in the Kyiv region in a July 2007 file photo, used to illustrate Ukraine power substations, not a site hit overnight — A high-voltage power line near Knyazhichi, in the Kyiv region, in July 2007 (file photo). This is not one of the substations Ukraine said were hit overnight on Nov. 10-11. Photo: Alexander Lazarev, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

Russia struck six major Ukrainian power substations in four regions overnight into Wednesday, Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi said, a second consecutive night of attacks on large energy facilities as U.S., Ukrainian, and Russian delegations met in Abu Dhabi. Ukrenergo, the state grid operator, reported outages affecting some customers in eight regions, including Kyiv. In the capital, the municipal utility Kyivmisksvitlo said it would temporarily switch off streetlights to reserve power for essential city facilities, the Kyiv Independent reported.

The overnight strikes came as the war in Ukraine continued during the second day of trilateral talks. Those talks later ended without a peace breakthrough, with both sides saying they had agreed in principle to a large prisoner exchange. The fighting did not pause for the meetings.

6 major substations hit, Koretskyi said | Outages in 8 regions, Ukrenergo said | At least 14 people injured, the prime minister said | Second consecutive night of attacks on major energy sites

Where the substations were hit

Koretskyi said the six major substations were in the Vinnytsia, Kirovohrad, Zhytomyr, and Cherkasy regions, and that power lines of various voltages were also damaged in Kirovohrad and Rivne, according to the Kyiv Independent, RBC-Ukraine, and ABC News. That list overlaps only in part with the previous night. On the night into Tuesday, Koretskyi said Russia had hit five major substations in the Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, Vinnytsia, and Kirovohrad regions, as The Boston Report reported at the time. Vinnytsia and Kirovohrad appear on both nights’ lists; Poltava and Dnipropetrovsk do not appear among Wednesday’s four, while Zhytomyr and Cherkasy do.

Bar chart comparing five major substations hit on the night reported Tuesday with six on the night reported Wednesday, according to Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi

Major substations hit on two consecutive nights, according to Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi. Tuesday’s figure was reported in The Boston Report on Nov. 10. Wednesday’s figure was reported by the Kyiv Independent, RBC-Ukraine, and ABC News. These are official Ukrainian counts, not independently verified by TBR. Source: Koretskyi, as reported in those outlets; chart: The Boston Report.

The Kyiv Independent noted that damage to major substations can disrupt supplies over large areas, including regions far from the sites directly hit, and that the attacks add pressure on the grid heading into winter, when demand for electricity and heating typically rises. Ukrenergo said some customers were without power in Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Rivne, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Chernihiv. Emergency repair crews were working to restore supplies, the operator said, while emergency outages remained in effect in Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk.

Kyivmisksvitlo said the streetlight cutoff applies only to municipal lighting and does not change power-outage schedules for homes. Lights connected to public warning systems may remain on when electricity is available, until 10 p.m., the Kyiv Independent reported. The strikes add to an energy crisis that already prompted European governments this week to agree to activate an EU emergency mechanism for Ukraine.

Heating, railways, and civilian damage

In Kryvyi Rih, Russian forces struck a district heating facility, disrupting heat supplies to residential buildings, Koretskyi said. Repair crews were working to restore heating. Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the Kryvyi Rih defense council, said a drone strike left parts of the city without electricity and heating and that apartment buildings, schools, and kindergartens were damaged, RFE/RL reported.

Koretskyi also said Russian attacks damaged railway facilities in the Dnipropetrovsk and Zhytomyr regions, that a guided aerial bomb damaged a school building in the Kherson region, and that five apartment buildings were damaged in Kharkiv, RBC-Ukraine reported. He said at least 14 people had been injured and were receiving medical care. ABC News, citing Ukraine’s State Emergency Service, reported that attacks injured six people in the Zaporizhzhia region, one person in Kharkiv, and five people in Zhytomyr, and that Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least one person was injured in the capital. Those local tallies were reported separately from Koretskyi’s figure of at least 14 and should not be added together as a single confirmed total.

Ukraine’s air force account

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 163 drones, of which 91 were jet-powered, along with an unspecified number of Kh-59/69 air-to-ground missiles and Banderol cruise missiles, ABC News reported. Defenders intercepted or suppressed 130 drones, including 72 jet-powered drones, and 14 Banderol missiles, the air force said, with impacts recorded at 17 locations. Those figures are Ukraine’s official account of the night’s incoming attack and have not been independently verified.

Attacks reported inside Russia

Aleksandr Drozdenko, the governor of Russia’s Leningrad region, said in a Telegram post that 150 Ukrainian drones were shot down over the region overnight and that “the target of the attack was the port area of Ust-Luga,” ABC News and RFE/RL reported. Ust-Luga is a major Russian energy and oil export hub on the Baltic Sea, near St. Petersburg. “As a result of several drones hitting the area, a fire broke out, and three workers were injured. Their lives are not in danger,” Drozdenko said. The precise facilities struck and whether loading operations were interrupted have not been independently established.

Andriy Kovalenko, the head of a counter-disinformation center under Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, wrote that “something is burning in the area near the port of Ust-Luga, near St. Petersburg,” ABC News reported. RFE/RL said the Ukrainian military did not immediately confirm the attacks in Russia. The figures for intercepted drones and the damage at the port come from Russian regional authorities and should be read as claims by a party to the conflict.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses intercepted and destroyed 627 Ukrainian drones overnight over 22 regions, including Moscow, occupied Crimea, and the Sea of Azov. Unverified claim, Russian Defense Ministry (Russian Defense Ministry) That claim was not independently confirmed, and it is much higher than the 150 drones Drozdenko said were shot down over Leningrad region alone; the two figures describe different geographic scopes and were not reconciled by either source.

Two people were killed when drone debris struck an apartment building in Russia’s Smolensk region, which borders Belarus, according to regional authorities cited by RFE/RL and ABC News. ABC News also reported that one person was wounded by a drone attack in the Belgorod region, according to local officials, and that Russia’s federal air transport agency, Rosaviatsiya, issued temporary flight restrictions at more than 20 airports, including Pulkovo in St. Petersburg and Moscow’s Vnukovo and Domodedovo airports. Authorities in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia issued warnings of potential drone incursions, ABC News said, without specifying the suspected origin of the aircraft.

As in previous nights this month, official accounts from Kyiv and Moscow diverge in detail and cannot be fully reconciled from public statements alone. What both the Ukrainian prime minister and Ukraine’s grid operator described on Wednesday was another night of strikes on large substations, outages stretching into eight regions, and a capital conserving power by turning off its streetlights while talks continued a continent away.

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Russia Hits Six Major Substations in a Second Night of Strikes, Leaving Outages in Eight Regions