More than 200,000 households in Russian-occupied parts of southern Ukraine were left without electricity on Sunday, according to Kremlin-installed authorities. The blackout was caused by Ukrainian drone strikes that damaged power networks, said Yevgeny Balitsky, the Moscow-appointed governor of the Zaporizhzhia region.
Meanwhile, Russia continued its assault on Ukraine's energy infrastructure overnight, killing at least two people, Ukrainian officials reported. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram that two people died in attacks across the country, including in Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi and Odesa. Ukraine's Emergency Service reported that a fire broke out in Odesa region after a Russian strike but was quickly extinguished, and at least six people were injured in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
Zelenskyy noted that Russia used over 1,300 attack drones, 1,050 guided aerial bombs and 29 missiles against Ukraine this week. He described the strategy as “weaponizing winter,” aimed at weakening Ukrainian resistance. “If Russia deliberately delays the diplomatic process, the world’s response should be decisive: more help for Ukraine and more pressure on the aggressor,” he said.
The comments came as a Ukrainian delegation arrived in the United States for talks on a US-led diplomatic push to end the nearly four-year war. Zelenskyy said on Friday that the delegation would finalise documents on postwar security guarantees and economic recovery. If approved by US officials, the documents could be signed next week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where US President-elect Donald Trump is expected to attend.
