Russian drone strikes took out the power supply for hundreds of thousands of people in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an Oct. 31 post on his Telegram channel.
Zelenskyy said that overnight and into the morning, Shahed drones struck a thermal power plant in Kyiv, four power substations in the Dnipro region in the east, and a northeastern thermal power plant in Shostka.
He said that as a result, around 200,000 families in the Dnipro region were without electricity and more than 80,000 households in the Kyiv area were also without power.
Zelenskyy said that Russian forces also struck railway infrastructure in Dnipro and Kharkiv, and attacked a gas distribution facility in the Dnipro region.
“Strong steps are really needed towards peace,” Zelenskyy said in his Telegram post. “These are sanctions against the aggressor and new support packages for Ukraine.”
Zelenskyy said in another Telegram post that overnight on Nov. 1, Ukraine’s energy sector in four regions—Dnipro, Khmelnytsky, Vinnytsia, and Zhytomyr—was attacked, leaving hundreds of thousands of families without electricity.
The Russian Ministry of Defense did not specify that it had struck those targets.
The ministry said in a Telegram post that its drone had struck logistics infrastructure facilities used by Kyiv, including traffic control facilities at the Konotop railway station in Sumy Oblast, which it said was used to deliver weapons and military equipment to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Mutual Strikes Continue
For its part, Zelenskyy said that Kyiv’s forces had struck targets in the Rostov region, bordering Ukraine to the east.
The Ukrainian president said in a Nov. 1 post on X that the Kamensky plant, which he said was involved in missile production, was hit.
The Russian defense ministry said on Nov. 2 that overnight it had intercepted and destroyed 212 Ukrainian attack drones over more than a dozen areas, including the Moscow region, the Rostov region, Crimea, and over the waters of the Black and Azov Seas.
The strikes continued even into the last days of the ceasefire around the Russian-controlled Ukrainian town of Oleshky, which was brokered by U.S. First Lady Melania Trump.
The six-day ceasefire ended on Sunday, and in a post on X, the first lady commended Russia and Ukraine “for their leadership and cooperation surrounding the Oleshky ceasefire.”
She said she hoped the move “serves as a foundation for lasting peace between both nations.”
Patriot Systems
In a Nov. 1 post on X, Zelenskyy also urged the United States, Europe, and other partners to assist Kyiv with the delivery of Patriot missiles.
Zelenskyy’s remarks came after the United States had approved the possible sale of 500 Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement interceptors.
But Zelenskyy alluded to the fact that delivery of these missiles can take a long time, which Kyiv does not have.
“The United States and European countries made new decisions on additional packages for Ukraine. But these deliveries cannot take years,” he said in the post.
“Russia is destroying infrastructure and killing our people right now, and it is betting on ballistic missiles this winter. Accordingly, decisions on air defense must also be implemented now.”
On Oct. 30, the U.S. Department of State announced the deal, which it said was worth an estimated $2.1 billion, to be paid by partners and allies.
The department said that the deal will not negatively impact U.S. defense readiness.
