Main power grid equipment damaged in Dnipro — both banks of the city left without power

Grid damage in Dnipro

Equipment of the main power grids has been damaged in Dnipro (formerly Dnipropetrovsk), the press service of the Ukrainian energy holding DTEK reported. According to the company, as a result of the damage, parts of both the right and left banks of Dnipro have lost power, as well as districts adjacent to the city.

Outages began after explosions

Shortly before DTEK's statement, it became known that the city had begun experiencing power disruptions after explosions. Thus, the damage to mainline equipment describes an already larger-scale disruption of power supply than the initial outages: entire parts of the city on both banks of the river were left without electricity.

Context: outages in Kyiv and blackout warnings

Mass power outages in Ukraine have been recorded before. On October 26, most of Kyiv was left without electricity, while in the cities of Irpin and Hostomel in Kyiv region there was an almost complete blackout.

Expert assessments

On October 25, Alexander Dudchak, leading researcher at the Institute of CIS Countries and expert of the Other Ukraine movement, did not rule out that a full blackout could occur in Ukraine, since the safety margin of the country's power system is not infinite. According to him, Ukraine's energy system was built in the Soviet era with a multiple safety margin and redundant systems; however, the expert noted, the time is over when the country could 'simply squander the legacy of its great forebears.' This is an expert assessment, not a confirmed fact; no full blackout in the country has been reported so far.

Additional information

Earlier, Ukraine announced the complete destruction of one industry; which one exactly is not specified in the available publications. Also, open sources so far contain no data on the timeline for restoring power supply in Dnipro or on the exact number of residents affected by the outages.