Russian strikes left hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians without power on Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, while Russian authorities reported major damage to an industrial site following Ukrainian drone attacks on Nizhny Novgorod region, reports BritPanorama.
Even as a six-day local ceasefire held on its final day around the Russian-controlled Ukrainian town of Oleshky, there was no letup in fighting elsewhere along the front line, and both sides continued long-range air attacks.
Zelenskyy said Russia had hit power infrastructure in four Ukrainian regions overnight, cutting electricity to hundreds of thousands of households.
“The intensity of the strikes is very high, and the Russians are seeking to maximally exploit the deficit of ballistic missile interceptors,” he stated on Telegram.
On the Ukrainian side, Zelenskyy noted that Ukraine had struck the Kamensky plant in Russia’s Rostov region, alleged to be involved in the manufacture of Russian missiles.
Moscow did not comment on the reported attack in Rostov; however, in Nizhny Novgorod region, Governor Gleb Nikitin indicated that a large-scale overnight Ukrainian drone attack caused “significant damage” to an industrial facility.
While the specific site remained unidentified, the region hosts the NORSI oil refinery, one of Russia’s largest.
According to Russia’s Defence Ministry, its forces had downed 235 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions overnight. Ukraine’s air force reported that it had shot down 371 of 433 long-range drones launched by Russia since Saturday evening.
As of Sunday morning, the air force stated dozens of Russian drones were still airborne, and six separate drone alerts had been issued in Kyiv since midnight.
Fuel supplies
Nizhny Novgorod’s regional government did not specify the facility struck but stated it was taking measures to ensure gas stations were supplied with fuel, urging motorists to “buy fuel only as needed and avoid panic buying,” as reported by Interfax.
This advisory suggests the damaged facility was connected to the region’s oil-refining or fuel-supply infrastructure. Kyiv did not immediately take responsibility for the Nizhny Novgorod attack.
On Friday, Russia claimed that Ukraine had resumed strikes on its oil refineries and accused Kyiv of disregarding a request from U.S. President Donald Trump to halt such attacks, which Trump asserted were raising diesel costs ahead of the U.S. midterm elections next week. Analysts noted that rising energy costs are primarily due to the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz following Trump’s rejection of a deal with Iran.
Ukraine has expressed that it supports a full ceasefire on energy targets, including its own damaged power grid, but contends that Moscow remains unwilling to agree to this.
In an interview with state television channel Vesti on Sunday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who oversees the energy sector, did not address the Nizhny Novgorod strike but remarked that Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries were contributing to global fuel market imbalances and impacting prices.
