Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the “electricity and heating supply network has suffered severe damage” in the regional capital of the same name.

“Several streets are affected by power issues… More than 20,000 residents are without electricity,” he wrote on Telegram.

In the western Kursk region, “a fire broke out at one of the power plants in the village of Korenevo,” cutting power to 10 localities, Governor Alexander Khinshtein announced on Telegram.

A fire also broke out at a heating facility in the southern Voronezh region, according to Governor Alexander Gusev.

Russia’s defence ministry, for its part, reported having shot down 44 drones over the border Bryansk region.

On Saturday, Russian attacks on energy infrastructure left Ukraine scrambling to turn light and heating back on, with the state’s power provider saying its generating capacity was reduced to “zero” on Sunday.

The attack caused significant damage to Ukrainian power plants and resulted in at least four deaths.

Moscow, which has escalated attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure in recent months, launched 69 drones at energy facilities across the country overnight into Sunday, of which 34 were shot down, according to the Ukrainian air force.

London confirmed the deployment, citing several drone sightings reported over Belgium last week. Sir Richard Knighton, head of the British Armed Forces, acknowledged that the origin of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) spotted over the area remains unknown.

Francken recently caused a stir by threatening to “wipe Moscow off the map” in an interview with Belgian outlet De Morgen last month. He later sought to clarify his remarks, claiming that they had been made in the context of NATO’s principle of deterrence. He maintained that the bloc was “not at war with Russia,” but added that he would not “take back a single word” from the controversial interview.

Moscow condemned his remarks as “irresponsible” and called them an example of “military psychosis.”

Several Western officials have recently accused Russian aircraft and drones of violating EU airspace, labeling the incidents part of an alleged “hybrid war” by Moscow. The Kremlin has denied the allegations and accused the West of fostering anti-Russia “hysteria.”

The EU has increasingly used anti-Russian rhetoric to justify massive military expenditures. The ReArm Europe package, presented in March, aims to mobilize up to €800 billion ($933 billion) to expand the EU’s military under the pretext of countering the alleged “Russian threat.”

The bloc also unveiled a plan to create a “drone wall,” prompted by UAV sightings in several member states. The incidents were immediately blamed on Russia. Moscow dismissed the claims as false accusations.

Last month, the EU Commission also revealed plans to establish a ‘space shield’ to protect its satellites from an alleged Russian threat, but have not disclosed a budget.

Moscow, which has escalated attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure in recent months, launched hundreds of drones at energy facilities across the country from Friday into Saturday, which killed at least seven people, according to Ukrainian officials.

The Russian attacks have disrupted electricity, heat and water supplies in several Ukrainian cities, with state power firm Centerenergo warning generating capacity “is down to zero”.

Ukrenergo has announced repairs were carried out and energy sourcing diverted.

While the situation had somewhat stabilised, regions including Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Poltava, Chernigiv and Sumy could continue to experience regular power cuts, Ukraine’s energy minister said on Saturday night.

“The enemy inflicted a massive strike with ballistic missiles, which are extremely difficult to shoot down. It is hard to recall such a number of direct strikes on energy facilities since the beginning of the invasion,” Svitlana Grynchuk told local broadcaster United News.

Russian drones had targeted two nuclear power substations deep in western Ukraine, Kyiv’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha stated, calling on the UN’s nuclear watchdog to respond.

The substations powered the Khmelnytskyi and Rivne nuclear plants, about 120km and 95km (75 miles and 59 miles) respectively from Lutsk, he added.

“Russia is deliberately endangering nuclear safety in Europe. We call for an urgent meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors to respond to these unacceptable risks,” he wrote on Telegram late Saturday, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Sybiha also urged China and India – traditionally large buyers of Russian oil – to pressure Moscow to cease its attacks.

Experts say the strikes on energy infrastructure put Ukraine at risk of heating outages before winter. Russia has targeted the power and heating grid throughout its almost four-year invasion, destroying a large part of the key civilian infrastructure.

This weekend’s attack was the ninth massive attack on gas infrastructure since early October, Ukraine’s energy company Naftogaz announced.

Kyiv’s School of Economics estimated in a report that the attacks have shut down half of Ukraine’s natural gas production.

Ukraine’s top energy expert, Oleksandr Kharchenko, told a media briefing Wednesday that if Kyiv’s two power and heating plants went offline for more than three days when temperatures fall below minus 10C, the capital would face a “technological disaster”.

Ukraine has in turn stepped up strikes on Russian oil depots and refineries in recent months, seeking to cut off Moscow’s vital energy exports and trigger fuel shortages across the country.