What the strikes of mid-April 2024 showed about Ukraine's energy exposure
A look back at the days before 15 April 2024, when Russian attacks hit power facilities, a hydroelectric station and cities across Ukraine.
What did the days leading up to 15 April 2024 reveal about the pressures on Ukraine's public institutions? The reports from 10 to 13 April point to a sustained campaign against infrastructure, alongside attacks on cities and a continuing ground push.
Power facilities under fire
On 11 April 2024, Russia launched missile and drone strikes across Ukraine, damaging power facilities and leaving about 200,000 people without electricity. Ukraine said the Trypilska thermal power plant in Kyiv Oblast was destroyed in an overnight attack.
The following day, 12 April, drone strikes again hit several regions. Critical infrastructure was damaged in Kherson Oblast, and a fire broke out at the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station in Zaporizhzhia. About half a tonne of oil products leaked into the Dnieper river. The reports thus describe damage on two fronts: to electricity supply and to the environment.
Cities and casualties
Civilians were also hit directly. On 10 April, a Russian missile strike in Odesa killed four people and injured seven. On 11 April, a missile strike in Mykolaiv killed at least four people and injured five.
The front line and a missile test
On 13 April, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that its troops had captured the village of Pervomaiske near Donetsk. That was a Russian claim, made by the ministry itself.
Separately, on 12 April, Russia successfully test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile from the Kapustin Yar launch complex in Astrakhan Oblast.
What the pattern shows
Taken together, the reports show attacks landing on generation capacity, a major hydroelectric facility and residential areas within a span of four days. For government and local authorities, the practical burden was repairing damaged facilities, restoring supply to the roughly 200,000 affected people and responding to casualties in Odesa and Mykolaiv. The reports also show that the damage was not confined to one region: Kyiv Oblast, Kherson Oblast, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa and Mykolaiv were all named.
The accounts of 10 to 13 April therefore describe a country managing simultaneous demands: keeping the power system running, protecting people in cities under missile fire and containing the environmental consequences of strikes on energy assets.
