Russia pounds Ukraine’s power grid a week before U.S.-brokered peace talks in Abu Dhabi (Nov. 4)

Russia hammered Ukraine’s energy system in waves on Tuesday, knocking out power to large parts of the country a week before U.S.-brokered peace talks are due to resume, Reuters reported.

Zelenskiy said Russia launched 289 drones, 17 ballistic missiles and 59 cruise missiles overnight, hitting power plants and substations from the Black Sea port of Odesa in the south to Rivne in the west. DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private power producer, said three of its five thermal power plants had been knocked offline. Russia’s defense ministry called it a “massive strike” on energy facilities and port infrastructure in the Odesa region, Euronews reported.

Blackouts and casualties

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko described the power situation in the capital as “extremely difficult,” and Ukrainian officials said the attack caused outages in Kyiv and at least six other regions, along with disruptions to water and transport in the capital, according to Reuters. In Kharkiv, a strike hit a medical facility, wounding 25 people and forcing about 200 patients to evacuate, the regional governor said, per Euronews.

Zelenskiy said at least 33 people were killed Monday when Russia twice bombed a school being used to hand out humanitarian aid in the village of Komyshuvakha in the Zaporizhzhia region, and that about 50 people were still believed to be under the rubble. Moscow said it had targeted Ukrainian military units in the area. Ukraine’s energy minister, Denys Shmyhal, also said Russian drones were sent toward a substation vital to the Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plant.

The attacks came less than two days after a short humanitarian truce around the Russian-held town of Oleshky in the Kherson region ended. That ceasefire, the longest of the war, allowed an evacuation of residents and was brokered with help from U.S. first lady Melania Trump, according to Euronews and Reuters.

Talks next week

“The United States will mediate working-level negotiations between Ukraine and Russia on November 10–11 in Abu Dhabi,” U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff wrote on X Tuesday. The Kremlin confirmed the talks and said Putin aide Vladimir Medinsky will lead Russia’s delegation, Reuters reported.

At a news conference in Berlin with Zelenskiy, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called the talks “the right step” but said he had seen no sign yet that Russia was ready to negotiate seriously on a ceasefire. The European Commission said it would host a meeting on Ukraine on Wednesday with the U.S., NATO, European allies and Ukraine, and NATO planned more consultations Thursday.

Many Ukrainians fear another hard winter. “This winter is going to be very hard,” Dnipro resident Olha Hyria told Reuters. “Russia is striking power plants, heating plants, and that means this winter is going to be very difficult.”