President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russian “kamikaze drones” attacked at night, cutting power to more than 1.5 million people in the city of Odessa in the south of Ukraine.
The energy authority for the area said that fixing the damage from the strikes on Friday could take up to three months.
“After the Iranian drone attack at night, Odessa and other towns and cities in the area are in the dark,” President Zelenskyy said.
“As of right now, more than 1.5 million people in the Odessa region don’t have power.”
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, who is the vice head of the presidential administration, said that only hospitals and maternity wards had electricity.
Tymoshenko said, “The situation is still hard, but it is under control.”
Before President Vladimir Putin sent troops to pro-Western Ukraine on February 24, the Black Sea port was a popular vacation spot for many Ukrainians and Russians.
The governor of the area, Maksym Marchenko, said that Russia had attacked the city overnight with “kamikaze drones.”
“Because of the strike, almost all of the districts and towns in our area are without power,” he said.
Marchenko also said that two drones were shot down by air defence units in Ukraine.
On Friday, Kyiv said that the worst power outages were happening in the south of the war-torn country, including in Odessa. This was just a few days after Russia attacked the Ukrainian energy grid again.
Monday, Russia fired dozens of cruise missiles at important infrastructure in Ukraine. This added to the damage done to the country’s grid by previous attacks.
After some humiliating military losses, Russia started to go after Ukraine’s infrastructure.
President Vladimir Putin promised on Thursday to keep attacking Ukraine’s energy grid, even though there has been a lot of backlash against the attacks that have left millions of people cold and in the dark.
