Russian Strikes Darken Ukraine, Kherson Ceasefire Nears Its End
Overnight Russian attacks knocked out power for hundreds of thousands and a ceasefire in Kherson is set to expire Sunday night.
Russian air raids slammed Ukraine’s power grid overnight, plunging hundreds of thousands of homes into darkness.
Energy infrastructure in four regions was struck, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, and emergency crews have been racing to restore service.
In the Vinnytsia region, the State Emergency Service reported that an attack killed two people, one of them a 13‑year‑old girl.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces hit a major missile‑fuel producer in Russia’s Rostov region, igniting a fire and damaging four production facilities, Zelensky added.
Repair crews made progress in Dnipropetrovsk, restoring power to most customers by early evening, yet more than 60,000 households remained without electricity, according to the regional governor.
Regular strikes on the grid have forced scheduled power cuts across the country, including in Kyiv, where electricity is turned off for most of the day and water supplies are disrupted.
Zelensky posted that the intensity of Russian strikes has been “extremely high” over the past week, noting Russia’s attempt to exploit a shortage of ballistic‑missile interceptors.
He reiterated Ukraine’s daily requests for Patriot missiles—the only proven system against Russia’s ballistic missiles—and thanked allies for support while urging faster aid.
On the front line, the localized ceasefire in Kherson is set to end at 22:59 Ukrainian time (21:00 GMT) on Sunday.
The pause, which began on Tuesday, was brokered with help from U.S. First Lady Melania Trump and Pope Leo, and originally covered only the occupied city of Oleshky.
It was later expanded to the wider Kherson region, allowing civilians to evacuate the city that has been under Russian control since February 2022.
Oleshky remains hemmed in by the Dnipro River on one side and Russian forces on the other, with exit routes mined and vulnerable to drone attacks.
The ceasefire’s imminent end adds another layer of uncertainty as Ukraine continues to grapple with relentless attacks on its energy network.
