Thousands lose power supply after Russia attacks frontline region, Ukraine says

Above, a heavily damaged building in Zaporizhzhia following Russian overnight attack in this photo released on Oct. 30, 2025. (Telegram/@ivan_fedorov_zp/AFP)
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Updated 02 November 2025
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Thousands lose power supply after Russia attacks frontline region, Ukraine says

  • Nearly 60,000 people were deprived of power supply after Russia’s overnight air attack
  • Zaporizhzhia endures near-daily Russian artillery, missile and drone strikes

KYIV: Nearly 60,000 people were deprived of power supply after Russia’s overnight air attack on Ukraine’s frontline region of Zaporizhzhia, while two people were killed in the southern region of Odesa, Ukrainian authorities said on Sunday.

As winter nears, Russia has stepped up missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s power grid, triggering outages and forcing Kyiv’s emergency crews to race to repair damage and manage rolling blackouts.

The attack on Zaporizhzhia left two people wounded and reduced buildings to rubble, the regional governor, Ivan Federov, said on the Telegram messaging app.

“Crews will restore power as soon as the security situation allows,” Fedorov said on Telegram, where he posted nighttime photographs of buildings with facades and windows torn off.

Zaporizhzhia endures near-daily Russian artillery, missile and drone strikes that have destroyed homes, crippled utilities and killed scores, as Moscow pressures Ukraine’s defenses and disrupts links between its south and the rest of the country.

Fedorov said the overnight attack wounded two people. Russia’s 800 strikes on 18 settlements in the region killed one person and injured three over the 24 hours into Sunday morning, he added.

Two people died as a result of Russia’s overnight drone attack on Odesa on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, Ukraine’s state emergency service said on Telegram.

Separately, the death toll from a Russian air attack that set ablaze a shop in the Dnipropetrovsk region on Saturday has risen to four and includes two boys aged 11 and 14, the region’s acting governor said.

There was no immediate comment from Russia about the attacks.

Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia launched with a full-scale invasion on Ukraine in 2022, but thousands have been killed in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.


Merz pushes PA’s Abbas on reforms ahead of Israel trip

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Merz pushes PA’s Abbas on reforms ahead of Israel trip

BERLIN: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called for reforms of the Palestinian Authority in a phone call with its leader Mahmud Abbas early Saturday, hours before taking off for Israel.
Speaking from Berlin, Merz urged Abbas to push through “urgently necessary reforms” at the Palestinian Authority so that the organization could “play a constructive role in a post-war order,” according to German government spokesman Stefan Kornelius.
Merz also underscored German support for US President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza and “welcomed the Palestinian Authority’s cooperative attitude” toward the deal in the call, the spokesman said.
The fragile ceasefire agreement to end the Gaza war is supposed to be just the first phase of the plan.
Germany is among Israel’s closest allies and most outspoken supporters.
Merz’s call with Abbas came hours before the chancellor was scheduled to leave Berlin late Saturday morning for an overnight visit to Israel.
After a brief stop in Jordan, where Merz is scheduled to meet with the Jordanian King Abdullah II, Merz is expected to arrive in Jerusalem for meetings with top Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Merz also plans to visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Israel.
In his call with Abbas, Merz reiterated Germany’s position that a two-state solution remains the ultimate way to achieve peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians, according to the spokesman.
Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials hvae repeatedly rejected the prospect of an independent Palestinian state.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority in 2007, has also explicitly ruled out a two-state solution.