Russian strikes cut power in seven Ukrainian regions and Zaporizhzhia plant runs on diesel

Blackouts and heating losses in several regions

Ukrainian authorities said Russian strikes had left seven regions without electricity, and President Volodymyr Zelensky described a fresh wave of attacks on the energy grid as temperatures hovered around zero. In the Dnipropetrovsk region, Oleksandr Ganzha, head of the regional state administration, said on Telegram that more than 600,000 consumers had lost power because of damage to the network from attacks he attributed to Russia. Hospitals and critical infrastructure were switching to generators while technicians worked to restore services. Zelensky also gave a figure for heating losses in the Zhytomyr region, and he put it in a single sentence.

“In the Zhytomyr region alone, 140 apartment buildings were left without heating after a Russian attack.”

Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant loses grid link again

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe and currently under Russian control, had lost its external power connection through the Ferosplavna line. The station was forced back onto emergency diesel generators to keep nuclear fuel cooled. It is not yet clear where or why the interruption occurred. According to the IAEA, the available fuel reserves would allow a limited number of generators to run for about two weeks. The main Dniprovska power line has also been unavailable since at least 23 October, renewing international concern about a plant that has repeatedly been affected by the war.

Deadly strike on an aid distribution centre

Zelensky said Russia had also launched a drone at Komyshuvakha, a village in the Zaporizhzhia region. Russian forces hit an aid distribution centre there on Monday, 2 November, in what was described as one of the deadliest attacks of the war, and the reported death toll had risen to 55 by 8 November. Zelensky said that in the week before 8 November Russia launched 115 missiles, nearly 1,900 guided bombs and more than 3,000 attack drones against Ukrainian cities and communities. The sequence of recent developments is set out below.

Odesa attack and Russian claims of strikes

Serhii Lysak, head of the military administration of Odesa, said on Telegram that one person had been killed and some infrastructure damaged in a Russian attack on the city. Russia's defence ministry separately claimed that it had hit a container ship carrying weapons and military supplies for Ukraine in the Black Sea, southwest of Odesa, according to a statement carried by TASS. The ministry also said drones had struck a 330 kV electrical substation near Beloshitsy in the Zhytomyr region, about 170 km northwest of Kyiv, during the night of 7 to 8 November, and that the substation supplied Ukrainian military-industrial enterprises. Moscow further claimed its air defences had intercepted and destroyed 142 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones. Governor Yuri Slyusar told TASS that debris from a drone damaged a bridge over the Mius river in the Neklinovsky district of Rostov region, with no injuries.

Peace talks in Abu Dhabi

Moscow will take part in US-mediated peace talks in Abu Dhabi on 10 and 11 November with an expanded delegation, according to Kyiv Independent citing Reuters. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had previewed that senior diplomats and military officers would attend. The delegation will be led by Vladimir Medinsky, an adviser to Putin, and will include deputy foreign ministers Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin, military intelligence chief Igor Kostyukov and senior General Staff officer Yury Zhigarlovsky. The larger team could indicate Moscow's willingness to hold more substantive discussions on political and military questions.