Belgorod came under a “massive missile barrage,” with damage to the power system, said Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov on Telegram.
According to him, Ukraine’s armed forces struck Belgorod and the Belgorod district. Preliminary reports indicate no casualties. “There is serious damage at an infrastructure facility,” the governor added.
Authorities convened an emergency task force to assess the destruction, and crews began working to restore infrastructure.
According to the Telegram channel “Pepel,” a blackout followed missile strikes on two key electrical substations in the Belgorod area.
The channel said the Frunzenskaya substation near the village of Dragunskoye in the Belgorod district and the city substation “Belgorod” were hit.
After the strike, at least nine municipalities in the Belgorod region partially or fully lost power, Pepel reported. It added that gas stations in Belgorod saw lines as residents bought fuel, including for generators.
Heat and water stopped in a number of homes, and heating systems shut down. Outside temperatures are as low as minus 22 degrees Celsius. Water outages are concentrated in the city center.
The Belgorod region water utility said on its Telegram channel that power was cut to all city water intakes, to the pumping station supplying the Kharkovskaya Gora area, and to some wastewater facilities.
Water utility sites are without power in the Rakitnyansky and Krasnoyaruzhsky districts, and partially in the Yakovlevsky district. Water supply systems are disrupted in the city of Shebekino and the settlements of Maslova Pristan and Grafovka. Specialists have begun connecting systems to backup power sources.
Overnight on February 3, Russian forces attacked Ukraine’s energy system.
Ukrainian authorities said both generation and distribution facilities were targeted. Thousands were left without heat amid temperatures near minus 20 Celsius.
“This was a targeted strike on the energy sector, with a record number of ballistic weapons. In fact, the Russian army used the American proposal for a short-term pause in strikes not to support diplomacy, but simply to stockpile missiles and wait for the coldest days of the year, when temperatures across much of Ukraine are -20 Celsius and below,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media after a briefing on the energy situation in the regions following the Russian strike.
According to the Ukrainian President, Russia used 32 ballistic missiles, another 11 missiles of other types that follow a ballistic trajectory, 28 cruise missiles, and 450 attack drones.
