At least 700,000 people in a southern track of Ukraine controlled by the Russian forces were out of power on Tuesday, after Ukrainian drone attacks and bombing down electricity substations, authorities said by Russia.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine, but the attack, which targeted the regions of Zaporizehzia and Kherson, seemed to be one of the greatest of its kind in Russia -controlled territory since the beginning of the war in February 2022.
Russia claims both regions, of which it already controls large areas and is trying to capture the rest of them, as part of what it considers its effort to ensure its own safety and ensure the future of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers.
Ukraine rejects Russia’s portrait of the conflict, calling it the appropriation of colonial lands by Moscow and promising to resume the lost territory through a mixture of strength and diplomacy.
Drone attacks occurred hours after Russian and Ukrainian delegations gathered in Turkey for peace conversations, in which Moscow said he would only agree to end the war if Kiev gave way great new portions of territory and accepted limits to the size of his army.
Russian -backed authorities said the situation at the Zaporizehzia nuclear plant – the largest European nuclear installation that was taken by Russia in 2022 – was under control, but difficult.
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Russian authorities who manage the plant said that radiation levels were normal in the installation, which operates in a shutdown mode and does not produce energy at the moment.
Yevgeny Balitsky, Russia’s governor of Zaporizehzia, said that more than 600,000 people in almost 500 settlements throughout the region had no electricity after Ukrainian bombings damaged the high voltage infrastructure.
“As a result of bombing of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, high voltage equipment was damaged in the northwest part of the Zaprizzhzia region,” Balitsky wrote on Telegram.
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In Kerson’s adjacent region, the west of Russia -appointed Governor Vladimir Saldo said fallen drone debris damaged two electricity substations, interrupting power supply to more than 100,000 residents of 150 locations and villages in areas controlled by Russia.
Separately, the emergency services of the city of Sumy, in northeastern Ukraine, said on Tuesday that a Russian attack killed three people and wounded at least 16.
“The Russians launched a wild attack on Sumy – shot directly to the city and its ordinary rocket artillery streets,” wrote Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in X.
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There was no immediate comment from Russia about these Ukrainian accounts.
Both Russia and Ukraine deny having civilians as a target in their attacks. But thousands of civilians died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainians.
(Report of the Moscow Newsroom, Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and Anastasia Malenko in Kiev)
