A major Russian attack on Ukraine's energy network caused power outages on Saturday morning across a large part of the country, the Ukrainian electricity company announced. Russia has been waging a campaign of strikes on Ukraine's energy network for months, causing the sector's worst crisis since the invasion began in 2022.

Published on: 02/07/2026 - 08:41 Modified on: 02/07/2026 - 10:42

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Ukraine was targeted on the morning of Saturday February 7 by a major attack on its energy network which caused power outages in a large part of the country, the Ukrainian electricity company announced.

“Russia is carrying out a new massive attack on Ukrainian power grid facilities,” Ukrenergo said on Telegram.

“Due to the damage caused by the enemy, emergency outages have been implemented in most areas,” the provider added, specifying in its message around 5:15 GMT that the attack was in progress.

Russia has been carrying out a campaign of strikes on the Ukrainian energy network for months, causing the worst crisis in this sector since the start of the invasion in 2022. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian homes have repeatedly found themselves in the dark and in the cold.

On Saturday morning, power cuts were notably reported by the authorities in kyiv, already particularly affected in recent weeks.

Temperatures plunged to -5°C in the capital in the early morning and are expected to drop over the weekend to reach as low as -20°C on Monday. Explosions and power outages were also reported in the west of the country.

Read alsoDeprived of electricity, 600,000 Ukrainians have left kyiv since January 9

The Polish army announced on X that it had deployed planes to protect its airspace, as is often the case in the event of Russian bombings targeting border regions.

These new bombings come the day after shootings in Moscow injured a senior Russian military intelligence official, General Vladimir Alekseyev.

Russian authorities blamed this attack on kyiv, which did not react.

On the diplomatic level, Russians and Ukrainians met in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday and Thursday in the presence of the Americans to negotiate an outcome to nearly four years of war in Ukraine.

Also read: Russia criticizes France's "pathetic diplomacy", but says it is ready for dialogue

The only tangible result publicly announced was a prisoner exchange between kyiv and Moscow, the first of this type since October.

Friday evening, in his daily address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his team of negotiators, once returned to Ukraine, would report to him on Saturday on "sensitive aspects of the negotiations that cannot be discussed over the telephone."

He also said that he was going to speak on Saturday with “European partners” of kyiv.

With AFP

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