Ukraine faced sweeping power disruptions on Saturday after Russia launched a massive barrage of drones and missiles targeting the country’s energy infrastructure.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow deployed over 450 drones and 45 missiles in the attack, which knocked out key substations feeding the Khmelnytskyi and Rivne nuclear power plants and left several regions facing lengthy outages.

State-owned generator operator Tsentrenergo described the assault as one of the largest in the war, with operations at plants in Kyiv and Kharkiv halted entirely.

The national grid operator, Ukrenergo, imposed rolling blackouts of up to eight to sixteen hours nationwide as crews raced to stabilise the system.

At least seven people were killed, including a child in the Vinnytsia region and others in Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv.

Residents in impacted cities such as Kremenchuk and Horishni Plavni were forced to rely on backup power just to maintain water and heat supply.

Ukraine’s Prime Minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, called on the international community for stronger sanctions and accelerated air-defence deliveries, saying: “Their goal is to plunge Ukraine into darkness.” Russian officials claimed the strikes targeted energy and military supply nodes, dubbing the operation “massive”.

Analysts say this wave of attacks underscores Moscow’s winter-strategy shift: targeting generation and distribution simultaneously to maximise civil-impact and stretch Ukraine’s repair capabilities.

As this year’s cold-weather set-in approaches, the resilience of Ukraine’s power system and the speed of restoration will become a critical test.