Overnight Russian strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure left about 850,000 people without electricity on Sunday, 8 November, as Moscow stepped up its campaign against the country's power grid with winter approaching.

The heaviest losses were in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, where power company DTEK said more than 600,000 residents were left without electricity after overnight strikes damaged key energy facilities. The outages reached the regional capital, Dnipro, and the Pavlohrad, Samarivskyi, Kamianske and Dnipro districts. DTEK said repair crews were working to restore supply, but repeated attacks were complicating the work.

In the north-eastern Kharkiv region, about 250,000 people were left without power after a Russian drone struck what officials described as a critical infrastructure facility. Zlatopil Mayor Mykola Baksheyev said no casualties were reported from that strike, and repair work was under way, although officials had not said when electricity would be fully restored.

The strikes came a day after Ukraine's Energy Ministry said a large-scale attack on energy facilities had caused blackouts in five regions and significantly disrupted electricity transmission in Kyiv. Russia has repeatedly targeted Ukraine's energy grid during its four-and-a-half-year invasion, and the attacks have intensified as temperatures fall.

Sunday's outages were the latest in a run of attacks on the grid in less than a week. On 7 November, Reuters reported that Russian forces had hit energy infrastructure around the capital with missiles and drones overnight. Days earlier, on 3 November, Russia said it had struck electricity grid facilities in the Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions. Each wave has added to the strain on repair crews, who must work while further strikes remain a threat.

The timing matters because the attacks are aimed at the systems that keep homes warm and lit through the winter. With temperatures already hovering around freezing, a prolonged loss of electricity also threatens heating and water supplies, and hospitals and other critical facilities must rely on backup generators until the grid is repaired. DTEK, the energy provider that reported the Dnipropetrovsk outages, said its crews were working to restore power, but that repeated attacks were complicating the repair effort.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of intensifying the attacks in an effort to put pressure on Kyiv ahead of United States-brokered trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi, scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday. He also said Russia had launched a drone strike on the site of a recent attack in Komyshuvakha, in the Zaporizhzhia region, where rescuers were still carrying out search operations after a bombing on Monday that killed at least 55 people.

Russia's Defence Ministry said its forces would continue strikes against Ukrainian fuel and energy infrastructure facilities that it says aid the Ukrainian military. Ukraine is now entering another wartime winter, with temperatures already hovering around freezing, and officials have warned that further attacks on the grid could leave more households without power and heating in the weeks ahead.