Ukraine's Energy Ministry announced the emergency outages in Kyiv and the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Zhytomyr regions, saying the measure followed massed Russian shelling.
Prime Minister Serhiy Koretsky said Russia had resumed systematic, massed strikes on energy infrastructure. According to him, there had been almost no day since the summer without attacks on the power sector, but an attack this massed and combined had not occurred since the end of the previous heating season.
Generating equipment was damaged at the Trypillia thermal power plant, about 40 kilometers from Kyiv. Footage of drones striking power transmission lines appeared online.
Serhiy Beskrestnov, an unpaid adviser to Ukraine's president, wrote that Russia for the first time used a new munition on a jet-powered drone - a cumulative-cutting special payload (KRSN) designed to destroy high-voltage pylons and metal bridge structures. He suggested Moscow plans to attack power lines with this munition.
On the evening of September 30, Russian forces attacked a number of Ukrainian regions, including Kyiv and Odesa, Deutsche Welle reported. In Kyiv's Obolonskyi district, a drone struck warehouse premises; in the Holosiivskyi district, debris fell near a road and trees caught fire.
In Kyiv's Solomianskyi district, a drone hit a multi-story residential building: the main damage was to a cafe on the ground floor, and the blast wave damaged apartment windows, other businesses and parked cars. In Odesa, a drone struck a business center.
Several residential buildings and cars were damaged in five districts of the Kyiv region, and a woman was injured in the Boryspil district, said Timur Tkachenko, head of the regional military administration. In the Bila Tserkva district, an educational building was damaged. Guided aerial bombs struck Sumy: according to preliminary data, six people were injured.
Ukrenergo, the national power company, said that because of attacks on energy facilities, consumption restrictions would be imposed in some regions on October 1. Power limitation schedules for industry and business will apply from 8:00 to 21:00, and hourly outages for all categories of consumers from 8:00 to 11:00 and from 16:00 to 21:00.
The strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities came a day before the first autumn frosts: in several parts of the country, temperatures will drop below zero overnight into Thursday, October 1.