Ukrainian Airstrikes Knock Out Power in Belgorod Region for Second Time in a Month

Thousands of people in the southwestern Belgorod region are without power, heating and water for the second time in a month after Ukrainian airstrikes Tuesday night damaged energy infrastructure, with emergency crews scrambling to restore utilities to customers amid subzero temperatures.

Belgorod region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said early Wednesday that 12 missiles and three drones had struck the city of Belgorod over the past 24 hours, damaging facilities critical to the functioning of the region’s power grid. Another 19 missiles and 104 have struck the wider region since Tuesday.

“Our power crews are trying to address the situation as quickly as possible amid this extremely difficult period of subzero temperatures with severe frosts,” Gladkov wrote in a post on Telegram.

He said the recovery was proceeding “in a routine manner” but warned that emergency outages were possible during work to restore power throughout the day. Rosseti, the state-owned electricity provider, said power would be restored “in stages.” 

The Belgorod region’s water utility provider, Vodokanal, said a Ukrainian missile attack knocked out power to all of its water intake facilities, a pumping station and several wastewater facilities.

Vodokanal reported a series of emergency water outages overnight and warned that the northern part of the region was without water as of early Wednesday.

This is the second Ukrainian attack on the Belgorod region’s energy infrastructure over the past month. The previous strike on the night of Jan. 9 left around half a million residents of the city of Belgorod without electricity and heat, and around 200,000 residents without water for several days.

On Wednesday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defense systems destroyed nearly 40 Ukrainian drones in the skies above the Belgorod region between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. It did not report any missile strikes.

The Belgorod region, which borders northeastern Ukraine, has faced regular cross-border shelling and drone attacks since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

The Ukrainian airstrikes came a day after Russia launched what Kyiv described as its “most powerful” attack of the year on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, leaving hundreds of thousands without heat as temperatures plunged.