Sunday, January 18th saw 200,000 residents without electricity after a Ukrainian UAV strike disconnected them from the grid.
In response to earlier Ukrainian drone activity, the Moscow-backed regional governor took to Telegram—announcing ongoing work to restore the power supply. Yevgeny Balitsky also admitted that almost 400 settlements remain without electricity.
Separately, Balitsky’s counterpart in the Caucasus mountains region of North Ossetia announced that two children and one adult were injured when a Ukrainian UAV hit a residential building in the town of Beslan.
The direct and indirect casualties in Moscow-controlled areas coincide with renewed claims that Russia is targeting Ukraine’s nuclear power system. According to President Volodymyr Zelensky
We do not see any willingness on the part of the aggressor to comply with any agreements or end the war… Instead, there is ample information about preparations for further Russian strikes on our energy sector and infrastructure, including facilities and networks that serve our nuclear power plants. Each such Russian strike on the energy sector amid such a harsh winter weakens and undermines the efforts of key states—in particular the United States—to end this war.
Zelensky’s claims were based on a briefing from Oleh Ivashchenko, his new chief of defence intelligence, who replaced Kyrylo Budanov, now in charge of the president’s office.
