Russia and Ukraine Trade Overnight Drone Barrages on Energy Grids as Trump's Ceasefire Push Stalls
Hundreds of drones flew in both directions overnight as Moscow and Kyiv hammered each other's power and industrial sites, leaving hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian households in the dark despite a White House push for an energy truce.
Russia and Ukraine launched overnight drone attacks against each other's energy and industrial infrastructure early Friday, the latest exchange in a war that has shown no sign of slowing despite a renewed push from Washington for at least a partial ceasefire covering energy targets.
Russia's Defense Ministry said it intercepted 142 Ukrainian drones overnight across Russian territory and annexed Crimea, while Ukraine's air force said it downed or jammed 196 Russian drones over the same period, according to The Moscow Times. In Russia's southern Krasnodar region, authorities said drone debris sparked a fire at an industrial facility in the town of Afipsky that independent monitoring group Astra identified as the local oil refinery.
Ukraine took the harder hit. President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian strikes knocked out power infrastructure in four Ukrainian regions overnight, cutting electricity to hundreds of thousands of households, according to NBC News. The outages came despite a White House effort led by President Trump to broker a limited ceasefire covering strikes on energy infrastructure specifically — an effort both sides have so far continued to violate.
Still reeling from Tuesday's deadly strike
The latest barrage lands just two days after Russia struck a shelter and aid distribution site in Komyshuvakha, in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region, in what Zelensky called "one of the deadliest attacks of this war." Outlets have put the death toll at anywhere from roughly 30 to several dozen, with search efforts continuing. Ukraine's military said it struck back at a Russian drone launch site and military depots in response.
ONE OF THE DEADLIEST ATTACKS OF THIS WAR.
Beyond Friday's exchange, Ukraine's Vinnytsia region, Hlukhiv in Sumy and Marhanets in Dnipropetrovsk were all hit overnight, with several people reported injured. The pattern has become grimly familiar heading into a fourth winter of war: both sides target the other's power grid as temperatures drop, betting that blackouts will grind down morale and industrial capacity faster than front-line fighting will.
Ukrainian officials have not given a timeline for restoring power to the affected regions. With both Moscow and Kyiv continuing to strike energy targets despite Washington's diplomatic push, there is no indication the exchanges will ease before the cold weather deepens.