A new wave of Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has put two of its biggest regions to the test, as local cities rolled out plans for dealing with their worst blackouts in years.
Their prepared “blackout mode” response provides some insight into how urban centers might steel themselves for energy crises in wartime, especially during cold months. Ukraine’s winter can turn brutal in January and February, when temperatures typically drop to 18°F.
Mass blackouts can also disrupt water and sewage systems, hospitals, public transportation, and road control, including traffic lights.
Roman Mykhalchuk/Suspilne Ukraine/JSC “UA:PBC”/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
Both Ukrainian troops and civilians have long learned to cope with frequent energy shortages in the winter, maintaining backup generators, battery-powered lamps, and stockpiles of coal or gas.
But Moscow’s latest attacks on Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk, two eastern Ukrainian regions, plunged both areas into almost total darkness this week.
Regional leaders have described it as their biggest energy crisis since 2022, when Ukrainians first faced wartime power outages. Borys Filatov, the mayor of Dnipro, Dnipropetrovsk’s largest city, said the situation there was one of the most severe in the country and had risen to the level of a “national emergency.”
“This is the first total blackout in the entire region in recent years,” Ivan Fedorov, Zaporizhzhia’s governor, said in a statement on Thursday.
As national authorities reported that over 1 million people had lost heat and water, local officials rushed to restore power and open access to facilities prearranged for the blackouts.
One of their prepared responses was to deploy “invincibility points,” or earmarked emergency shelters equipped with heat, communication, and basic necessities.
Some local governments publish a map with available locations for civilians. The city of Dnipro, for example, maintains a list of mostly schools, municipality buildings, and metro stations designated as safe spots.
Civilians are meant to visit these shelters to “warm up, charge your gadgets, and wait out the power outage,” per the municipal government.
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A video published by Oleksy Kuleba, Ukraine’s vice prime minister for reconstruction and the minister for community and territorial development, showed one point in Dnipropetrovsk that appears to be located in a small convenience store.
Kuleba said the region’s energy sector had been hit with a “massive blow,” and that over 5,000 people visited 500 such locations in the city of Dnipro within 24 hours after the power outages began.
Kuleba added that neighboring regions in Ukraine had donated 45 generators to Dnipropetrovsk, where some of its trains had switched to burning onboard fuel for power.
Zaporizhzhia’s governor, Fedorov, also said on Thursday that the region had 400 established invincibility points, with 200 ready for visitors within two hours.
“Residents could warm up, call their relatives, drink hot tea, and, if necessary, stay overnight,” he said.
Filatov, Dnipro’s mayor, said on Thursday that the city had set up 130 water dispensers, which his staff marked on Google Maps, and that disrupted public transport would be temporarily replaced by buses.
Roman Mykhalchuk/Suspilne Ukraine/JSC “UA:PBC”/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
Hospitals were already equipped with alternative power sources and necessities, while parts of the city, on the western bank of the Dnipro River, were supported by backup power, he added.
“The city’s sewage system is also powered,” Filatov said.
Notably, Filatov said that while authorities had extended local school holidays to January 11, kindergartens would operate on four-hour shifts “because it’s clear that parents are also in a difficult situation.”
In Zaporizhzhia, Fedorov said the region had been left “completely without electricity” on Wednesday evening.
“We immediately went into ‘blackout’ mode and started working according to a clear plan,” he said.
Zaporizhzhia’s hospitals similarly switched to backup power within minutes, and the region’s traffic lights “worked autonomously,” he added.
Restoring power as the shelling continues
Ukrainian officials have since said that power has been partially returned to both regions, with Kuleba reporting on late Thursday evening that water and heating in Dnipropetrovsk had been restored to over 1.7 million people and 270,000 people, respectively.
Energy supplier DTEK said that around 700,000 families in the Dnipropetrovsk region once again had access to electricity, though it added that Russian bombing was continuing.
“An exhausting day for energy workers in the Dnipropetrovsk region,” the company said.
Fedorov warned repeatedly on Thursday evening of incoming drone and guided missile strikes over Zaporizhzhia. He later said that Russia had carried out over 728 strikes, including drone attacks, artillery shelling, and multiple-launch rocket system strikes across Ukraine that day.
Both Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk are close to the southern and eastern front lines in Ukraine.
Kyiv has often accused Russia of specifically targeting energy infrastructure during the winter to exhaust and punish Ukrainian civilians, which is a war crime but is often difficult to prove.
The Kremlin has often responded that its strikes were intended for legitimate military targets, though the years have shown that critical facilities are regularly damaged or destroyed by the attacks.
“There is no military sense in such strikes on the energy sector, on infrastructure, which leave people without electricity and heating in winter conditions,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday.
