Power restored to much of Kyiv after major Russian strikes on energy grid

Power has been restored to more than 800,000 residents in Kyiv, a day after Russia launched major attacks on the Ukrainian power grid that caused blackouts across much of the country.

Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said “the main work to restore the power supply” had been completed on Saturday

Russian drone and missile strikes wounded at least 20 people in Kyiv, damaged residential buildings and triggered blackouts across swaths of Ukraine on Friday.

Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko described the attack as “one of the largest concentrated strikes” against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said the strikes had targeted energy facilities supplying Ukraine’s military.

The energy sector has been a key battleground since Russia launched its all-out invasion more than three years ago.

Each year, Russia has tried to cripple the Ukrainian power grid before the bitter winter season, apparently hoping to erode public morale.

Winter temperatures run from late October to March, with January and February the coldest months.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address on Friday that Russia was taking advantage of the world being “almost entirely focused on the prospect of establishing peace in the Middle East”.

“Russian assets must be fully used to strengthen our defence and ensure recovery,” he said in the video, posted to X.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in a joint statement on Friday they were ready to move toward using “in a coordinated way, the value of the immobilised Russian sovereign assets to support Ukraine’s armed forces and thus bring Russia to the negotiation table.”

The statement added they aimed to do this “in close cooperation with the United States.”

The biggest pot of ready funds available is through frozen Russian assets, most of which is held in Belgium — around 194bn euros as of June.