Russia and Ukraine continued heavy attacks on civilian and energy infrastructure overnight, less than a day after both sides signaled that U.S.-brokered peace talks were making progress.
Ukraine’s Energy Ministry announced on Friday that Russia has launched a major attack on energy facilities in Ukraine, leaving more than 500,000 people without power after attacks on energy facilities in the Zhytomyr, Volyn, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Khmelnitsky and Rivne regions.
The ministry added that emergency recovery work has begun once the security situation allows.
DTEK, one of Ukraine’s largest private energy companies, announced that unspecified thermal power plants had ceased generating electricity due to Russian shelling.
DTEK’s thermal power plants have been attacked more than 230 times since the invasion began in earnest in 2022, the company said in a Telegram post early Friday morning.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Defense announced that its air defense forces intercepted and destroyed 443 Ukrainian-made drones overnight.
The attack came after U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg on Wednesday to discuss ways to end the conflict with Ukraine.
After the meeting, Putin told Russian television that Moscow was ready to resume U.S.-mediated talks with Kiev in November.
“The goal of these talks is to ensure the security of Ukraine and Russia after reaching a peace agreement in its final form, and not as a result of a short-term temporary ceasefire. We are ready to resume these contacts to achieve this goal,” Putin said, Reuters reported.
The so-called “energy ceasefire” announced by President Donald Trump on October 11 has not produced any meaningful results.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said earlier this week that Ukraine had refrained from attacking Russian energy targets for three days, but then resumed attacks, citing continued attacks on Russian infrastructure.
President Zelensky said on CNN late Thursday that he was ready for a ceasefire but that Ukraine needed strong security.
