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Monitored since 4 November 2026 | last update 4 November 2026, 14:44 CET
Key takeaways
- Ukraine's Energy Ministry said on 4 November that Russian strikes forced its nuclear plants to cut output, without naming plants or amounts.
- Ukrenergo cancelled emergency outages in Kyiv and most regions, but Kharkiv region stayed on emergency cuts and some regions face up to 16 hours without power.
- Kyiv Post says strikes on substations and lines, not reactors, force nuclear plants to throttle output, a pattern Kyiv now frames as a European safety issue.
Ukraine's Ministry of Energy said on 4 November that Russian attacks on generation facilities and substations had forced the country's nuclear power plants to reduce output. The return to nominal levels will be gradual, the ministry said, "as soon as energy workers restore the networks damaged by the shelling." Around 11:25 the same morning, Ukrenergo, the national grid operator, said emergency outages had been cancelled in most regions, including Kyiv. That allowed a return to scheduled hourly cuts. Emergency outages stayed in place in Kharkiv region.
The ministry did not say that a reactor was hit. It did not name the plants affected or say how far they cut output. It said the situation was most difficult in the Kyiv region, with "serious damage to energy equipment." Some consumers in Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Zaporizhzhia, Kirovohrad, Kharkiv and Kherson regions were also without power. Ukrenergo warned that the situation "may change, including due to new attacks."
A strike aimed at the grid that feeds the plants
Russia launched an attack overnight on 2 to 3 November that Ukrenergo, Ukraine's national grid operator, described as one of the most extensive on the country's energy infrastructure, and that the Kyiv Independent called the biggest mass attack on the energy system this year. Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said on 3 November, after meeting G7, EU and Nordic-Baltic ambassadors, that Russia used 289 drones, 17 ballistic missiles and 59 cruise missiles. Ukrenergo said energy facilities were hit more than 20 times in the preceding 24 hours, Ukrainska Pravda reported. The attack followed the end of a local truce around Oleshky on 1 November and a strike on an aid point in Zaporizhzhia region on 2 November that killed at least 37 people, according to the regional military administration.
DTEK, Ukraine's largest private energy company, said three of its thermal power plants stopped generating. Reuters said that is three of its five. Shmyhal said Russia "directed three drones at a substation critical to the stable operation of the Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant." He called it "a serious step of escalation, which we have reported to the IAEA" (the International Atomic Energy Agency). Russia's Defence Ministry claimed it hit four power plants and two substations, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US think tank.
In Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko called the power situation "extremely difficult," Reuters reported. The city's water supply shut off temporarily and trams and trolleybuses stopped. Warming centres were set up in the districts hit hardest by the lack of electricity, a day after Kyiv began connecting residential buildings to heating. City authorities said water supply was partly restored on the morning of 4 November.
Observers are reading: how the grid-versus-reactor distinction works, what the new rationing figures show, and the three gaps in the reporting.
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Safety framing, talks and winter
Shmyhal said Ukraine expects "an appropriate response from international partners." He is presenting the substations as a European nuclear-safety issue. On 13 October, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha announced an agreement with the IAEA to send missions to 19 Ukrainian electricity substations, according to Ukrainska Pravda. The IAEA had not commented on the drone attack on the Khmelnytskyi substation at the time of Euromaidan Press's report.
US-mediated working-level talks between Ukraine and Russia are set for 10 to 11 November in Abu Dhabi, according to US envoy Steve Witkoff. The package Washington has promoted includes a reciprocal energy pause. It has not held so far. ISW assesses the strikes as a campaign "aimed at inflicting increasing costs on Ukrainian society and coercing Ukraine into capitulating over the winter."
On 4 November, whether allies treat grid-feeding substations as nuclear-safety infrastructure, and whether any response comes before cold weather tests the system, was still open.
Updates
4 November 2026, 14:44 CET
Russian-installed authorities in occupied Crimea said Ukrainian strikes caused widespread emergency power outages across the peninsula on 4 November, affecting cities including Sevastopol, Simferopol, and Kerch, according to AFP. Officials also cited an external technical incident and overloads on incoming transmission lines, leaving the primary cause independently unverified.
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