Power restored to 800,000 in Kyiv after major Russian strikes on
Ukraine's energy grid
[October 11, 2025]
Power was restored to over 800,000 residents in Kyiv on Saturday, a day
after Russia launched major attacks on the Ukrainian power grid that
caused blackouts across much of the country, and European leaders agreed
to proceed toward using hundreds of billions of frozen Russian assets to
support Ukraine’s war effort.
Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said Saturday that “the
main work to restore the power supply” had been completed, but that some
localized outages were still affecting the Ukrainian capital following
Friday’s “massive” Russian attacks.
Russian drone and missile strikes wounded at least 20 people in Kyiv,
damaged residential buildings and triggered blackouts across swaths of
Ukraine early Friday.
Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko described the attack as “one of the
largest concentrated strikes” against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Russia’s Defense Ministry on Friday said the strikes had targeted energy
facilities supplying Ukraine’s military. It did not give details of
those facilities, but said Russian forces used Kinzhal hypersonic
missiles and strike drones against them.
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 through March, with January
and February the coldest months.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address
Friday that Russia was taking advantage of the world being “almost
entirely focused on the prospect of establishing peace in the Middle
East,” and called for strengthening Ukraine’s air defense systems and
tighter sanctions on Russia.
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Emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following a
Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. (AP
Photo/Dan Bashakov)
"Russian assets must be fully used to strengthen our defense and
ensure recovery," he said in the video, posted to X.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister 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.”
Ukraine’s budget and military needs for 2026 and 2027 are estimated
to total around 130 billion euros ($153 billion). The European Union
has already poured in 174 billion euros (about $202 billion) since
the war started in February 2022.
The biggest pot of ready funds available is through frozen Russian
assets, most of which is held in Belgium – around 194 billion euros
($225 billion) as of June – and outside the EU in Japan, with around
$50 billion, and the U.S., U.K. and Canada with lesser amounts.
Ukraine’s air force said Saturday that its air defenses intercepted
or jammed 54 of 78 Russian drones launched against Ukraine
overnight, while Russia’s defense ministry said it had shot down 42
Ukrainian drones over Russian territory.
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