Russian Strikes Cut Power to 600,000 in Ukraine Days Before Abu Dhabi Talks

Russia fired three Kh-59/69 guided missiles and 164 strike drones at Ukraine’s power system overnight into Sunday, leaving more than 600,000 people without electricity in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region and forcing emergency outages in several others, Ukrainian officials said, just two days before Russia-Ukraine talks are due to open in Abu Dhabi.

Hospitals switch to generators as Dnipropetrovsk goes dark

Dnipropetrovsk’s military chief, Oleksandr Hanzha, said hospitals in the region switched to diesel generators and electric public transport stopped running in the city of Dnipro after the strikes knocked out power to more than 600,000 residents. He said repair crews were working to restore supply but were being hampered by “constant Russian shelling.” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described “widespread power outages across the country,” and grid operator Ukrenergo reported emergency, rotating outages in the Kharkiv, Sumy and Poltava regions, with full restoration targeted by the end of the day. In Zhytomyr region, a separate strike cut heating to 140 apartment buildings. A drone hit a private residence in a Dnipro suburb, killing one civilian and injuring another; four more people were hurt in Poltava region.

Substations tied to two nuclear plants among the targets

Ukrainian officials said the overnight barrage also damaged substations that connect the Rivne and Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plants to the grid supplying Kyiv — both plants continued operating, but the hits prompted Ukraine’s deputy prime minister to report the strikes to the International Atomic Energy Agency as a “serious escalation.” Ukraine’s armed forces said 137 of the drones launched overnight were intercepted; Ukrenergo described the attack as one of the largest yet on the country’s energy system, part of a campaign Russia has intensified since late September and that has targeted the grid every winter since its 2022 invasion.

Moscow points to a defense-linked substation and a Black Sea ship

Russia’s defense ministry said it had struck an electricity substation it described as supplying Ukrainian defense-industry enterprises, along with a Black Sea container ship it alleged was carrying weapons — claims that could not be independently verified. Russia also reported a retaliatory strike: authorities in its Kursk region said a 40-year-old man was killed when a Ukrainian drone hit a tractor.

A show of pressure ahead of talks in Abu Dhabi

Zelenskyy accused Moscow of applying “maximum pressure” on Ukraine ahead of US-brokered talks scheduled for November 10–11 in Abu Dhabi — the first major diplomatic session between the two sides since February. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said France would take part, a late addition after Ukraine’s European allies had not been expected at the table. US President Donald Trump said he believed a “big, beautiful agreement” could be close, “possibly involving all of Europe,” though the Kremlin has previously cited security concerns about European involvement as an obstacle to any settlement.

Sunday’s strikes mark a sharp escalation from the limited truce both sides agreed in October to halt strikes on energy infrastructure, an arrangement Ukraine was already reporting violations of by mid-October, when Trump insisted the “energy ceasefire” was holding despite new strikes on power plants. As The Daily Energy’s Russia energy profile has detailed, Moscow has used attacks on Ukrainian generation and transmission assets as a recurring lever heading into each winter heating season since the invasion began, and Sunday’s barrage — hitting grid infrastructure linked to two nuclear stations days before a high-level meeting — fits that pattern of pressure timed to the calendar of diplomacy rather than the battlefield alone.

Sources

• RFE/RL, “Russian Strikes On Energy Targets Leave 600,000 Ukrainians Without Electricity,” Nov. 8, 2026 — Dnipropetrovsk outage figures, Hanzha and Zelenskyy quotes, attack composition, Abu Dhabi talks and Trump/Barrot remarks.
• Ukrenergo and DTEK statements as reported by RFE/RL and allied Ukrainian outlets — emergency outage regions and restoration timeline.
• anewz.tv / IBTimes, Nov. 8, 2026 — nuclear-linked substation damage, IAEA notification and “serious escalation” characterization.

Illustrative image. Photo: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons — source