Ukraine’s Nuclear Plants Forced to Cut Output After Russian Substation Strikes as Komyshuvakha Toll Hits 37

Units one and two of the Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine in 2010 (file photo). Photo: alexndm, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Ukraine’s nuclear power plants have been forced to reduce their generating capacity because Russian strikes on substations have limited the grid’s ability to distribute the electricity they produce, First Deputy Energy Minister Artem Nekrasov said at a briefing on Wednesday, Ukrainska Pravda reported. Output will return to normal only gradually, once power engineers repair the networks damaged in the attacks, he said.

Key figures: 37 reported dead in the nov. 2 komyshuvakha strike · 3 drones aimed at a substation serving khmelnytskyi npp · 6 oblasts with consumers still without power wednesday morning

The most difficult situation is in the capital region, where distribution operators in Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast are imposing network restrictions because of extensive damage to energy equipment. Emergency power cuts were also in effect in Kharkiv Oblast. As of Wednesday morning, some consumers in Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Zaporizhzhia, Kirovohrad, Kharkiv and Kherson oblasts were without electricity. On Nov. 3, the state grid operator Ukrenergo said Russian forces had attacked energy facilities more than 20 times in the preceding 24 hours.

Drones aimed at a nuclear plant’s lifeline

During the massive attack on Nov. 3, Russia directed three drones at a substation critical to the stable operation of the Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant, Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said, according to Ukrainska Pravda. The International Atomic Energy Agency has been informed. “Such actions pose a threat not only to Ukraine, but also to nuclear safety across Europe,” Shmyhal said, calling the attack a serious escalation and urging Ukraine’s partners to respond. On Oct. 13, Ukraine announced an agreement with the IAEA to deploy monitoring missions to 19 electricity substations.

The latest overnight barrage of 310 drones is covered in our report on the overnight drone attack, and the grid damage that cut water to parts of Kyiv is in our Kyiv water outage story.

Komyshuvakha death toll rises to 37

The death toll from the Nov. 2 Russian strike on Komyshuvakha in Zaporizhzhia Oblast has risen to 37, Mykhailo Semikin, acting head of the oblast administration, said Wednesday, Ukrainska Pravda reported. Russian forces bombed a school being used to distribute humanitarian aid. Search and rescue operations, with dog handlers and bomb disposal experts from the State Emergency Service, are continuing. The reported toll has risen from 31 as of 11 a.m. on Nov. 3, when Semikin also reported five injured and nearly 50 missing, to 33 by that evening and 37 on Wednesday. Police officers and first responders were among the dead, and Zaporizhzhia Oblast declared three days of mourning, from Nov. 3 to 5.

Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braže said Latvia, which holds the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council for the first time in its history this November, has called an extraordinary meeting of the council over “horrific Russian attacks on civilians in Ukraine,” Ukrainska Pravda reported. Her post cited at least 26 deaths, a figure below the count Ukrainian officials have since released.

Russian strikes also hit Vilniansk in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, killing a 52-year-old woman and a 63-year-old man and injuring a 59-year-old man, Semikin said, according to Ukrainska Pravda. The strikes damaged a five-story apartment building and several houses and started a fire that firefighters later put out.

Ukraine hits air defenses in Crimea

Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces struck a Pantsir-S2 and a Pantsir air defense system, as well as a Russian mobile fire group, in occupied Crimea on Nov. 3 and overnight into Nov. 4, Ukrainska Pravda reported. Ukrainian forces also hit a drone ground control station near Vladivka in Zaporizhzhia Oblast and a logistics warehouse near Bilovodsk in Luhansk Oblast. “Every system struck weakens the enemy’s air defence,” the General Staff said.

In Russia, a drone hit an Ozon logistics center in Adygeysk, starting a fire after employees were evacuated, the company said; preliminary information showed no injuries, TASS reported !Unverified claim, TASS (Russian state news agency).

Diplomacy after the midterms

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow hopes President Donald Trump will keep up his peace effort after the U.S. midterm elections. “President Trump continues to stay in office. We sincerely expect that he will continue his peace push as well,” Peskov said, adding that “another round of trilateral talks will be held pretty soon,” TASS reported !Unverified claim, TASS (Russian state news agency). He declined to speculate on whether Congress could block the effort, calling it “an internal affair in America.”

Trump told the Financial Times that both sides are ready to make a deal. “I think they’re both at the point of saying, ‘Let’s make a deal’,” he said, according to Ukrainska Pravda. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Beijing is in contact with Washington and Moscow about a possible meeting of Xi Jinping, Trump and Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Shenzhen on Nov. 18-19, Ukrainska Pravda reported, citing Bloomberg. Front-line fighting is tracked in today’s Russia-Ukraine war update and on our Ukraine war tracker.

By the numbers

The reported Komyshuvakha death toll has risen by six in about a day as rescuers continue to search the site.

Watch for the IAEA’s assessment of the Khmelnytskyi substation strike, how quickly the nuclear plants return to full output and the date of the Security Council session Latvia has requested.

Sources

• Ukrainska Pravda: Ukrainian nuclear power plants have been forced to reduce electricity generation, Energy Ministry says
• Ukrainska Pravda: "Threat to nuclear safety across Europe": Russia attacks substation critical to Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant
• Ukrainska Pravda: Death toll from Russian strike on Komyshuvakha rises to 37, search and rescue operations continue
• Ukrainska Pravda: Latvia convenes emergency UN Security Council meeting over Russian attack on Komyshuvakha
• Ukrainska Pravda: Two killed in Russian attack on Vilniansk in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, fire breaks out in apartment building
• Ukrainska Pravda: Ukrainian forces strike two Russian Pantsir systems in occupied Crimea
• TASS: Ozon logistics center in Adygeysk hit by drone attack, no casualties
• TASS: Kremlin says hopefully Trump will continue his Ukraine peace push post election
• Ukrainska Pravda: Trump on Ukraine-Russia talks: Both sides are ready to say, "Let's make a deal"
• Ukrainska Pravda: China's Foreign Ministry confirms talks with US and Russia on three-leader summit – Bloomberg

Additional sources

• Ukrainska Pravda: Russia attacks energy infrastructure in six Ukrainian oblasts
• Ukrainska Pravda: Russia loses 2,180 soldiers over past day