Russia strikes Ukraine energy grid, triggering widespread outages

Russian drone and missile strikes early Friday struck energy facilities and residential areas across Ukraine, wounding at least 20 people in Kyiv, disrupting power and water supplies in the capital and cutting electricity to large swaths of the country as officials warned of further strain on supplies ahead of winter. The attacks, which Ukrainian authorities said hit energy infrastructure in at least nine regions, also killed a seven year old in Zaporizhzhia and caused fires in multiple apartment blocks in Kyiv.

Ukrainian military and energy officials said the barrage included hundreds of drones and scores of missiles. The air force reported about 465 strike and decoy drones and 32 missiles were used, and said air defenses intercepted or jammed roughly 405 drones and 15 missiles. Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said the strikes knocked out power on both sides of the Dnipro River and left many districts without water while rescue crews pulled more than 20 people from a burning 17 story apartment building; several people were hospitalized.

The national grid operator Ukrenergo and private generator DTEK reported outages across Kyiv and in the Sumy, Kharkiv, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk,...