Russian bombardment plunges hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians into blackout

People shelter inside an invincibility centre, where they can use Internet connection, charge their devices and warm up, amid water and electricity supply outage, after critical infrastructure was hit during Russian drone attack, in Chernihiv, Ukraine Oct

Russian attacks killed four people and left hundreds of thousands without power and many without water in Ukraine's Chernihiv region on Tuesday, Moscow's latest salvo in a campaign to break its neighbour's energy system ahead of winter.

The energy ministry said in the morning that the regional capital, also called Chernihiv, and the northern part of the province had lost all electricity supplyafter strikes on power facilities. By the afternoon, Reuters reporters in Chernihiv saw that power supply had been restored to some homes.

A subsequent daytime attack by about 20 Russian kamikaze drones killed four civilians and wounded at least seven more in the town of Novhorod-Siverskyi, local officials said.

They did not specify what the drones had been targeting, but said the town, which is about 20 miles (32 km) from the Russian border, had suffered significant damage.

In Chernihiv, residents filled containers with water from cisterns on the street, and people headed to "invincibility points" -- tents with stoves and generators set up by authorities to give locals some access to heat and electricity.

"It's hard," said a weary 45-year-old nursery assistant, Nina Dymyrets, who was sitting in one of the tents with her two grandsons. "One child didn't go to nursery because there was no power, another didn't go to school because there was no power and no lessons either."

Chernihiv region, which borders Russia and had a pre-war population of just under a million, has been hammered by drone and missile attacks on its power infrastructure in recent weeks, causing regular blackouts and disrupting daily life.

The attack also targeted the neighbouring Sumy region, where local authorities said nine people were hurt.

DRONES IN VICINITY HINDER GRID REPAIRS

The energy ministry said in the morning that emergency crews were initially unable to start work at damaged power facilities because of the lingering threat of Russian drones.

It accused Russia of circling drones above damaged facilities to make it impossible to carry out repairs and "deliberately prolong the humanitarian crisis".

President Volodymyr Zelensky later wrote on Telegram that repairs were underway. "Russia's tactics are to murder people and terrorise them with the cold," he said.

"(Russian President Vladimir) Putin pretends to be ready for diplomacy and peace negotiations, while in reality this night Russia launched a brutal missile and drone attack," Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X.

Russia has consistently hit Ukrainian energy facilities since launching a full-scale 2022 invasion of Ukraine, maintaining that they are a legitimate military target in war.

Chernihiv's acting mayor, Oleksandr Lomako, said Moscow was seeking to deprive local residents of power and heat ahead of the cold winter.

'WE WILL OVERCOME NOW,' SAYS CHERNIHIV MAYOR

He evoked the spirit of the early days of Russia's invasion, when Chernihiv was nearly surrounded by Russian forces who were then beaten back. "We overcame in February-April 2022. We will overcome now," he said on Telegram.

A former government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Moscow was probably targeting Chernihiv because of its proximity to Russia, which made it easier to attack, and because the energy facilities there were poorly protected.

Moscow has sharply increased the frequency of air attacks across Ukraine in recent weeks, as it did in strike campaigns in previous years that pitched cities well away from eastern and southern battlefronts into darkness for hours, sometimes days.

"They just hit and destroy everything. There's no end to this," said Nataliia, a 43-year-old mother rocking her daughter on a playground swing.