1.5M people in Odesa region without electricity after drone hits: Zelenskyy

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that at least 1.5 million people in the country's southern region of Odesa are without electricity after drone strikes in the area late on Friday.

Noting that only critical infrastructure and places where supply is possible were connected to the country's energy system, Zelenskyy said in an address late Saturday that power engineers, repair crews, and regional authorities are working non-stop to restore power.

"Unfortunately, the hits were critical, so it takes more than just a period of time to restore electricity ... It doesn't take hours, but a few days, unfortunately. We will do everything we can to speed up the recovery," Zelenskyy added.

Zelenskyy further said that emergency power outages continued in various regions, including Lviv, Vinnytsia, Kyiv, Ternopil, Sumy, Zakarpattia, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytsky, and the capital Kyiv.

"It must be understood that even if there are no heavy missile strikes, this does not mean that there are no problems. Almost every day in different regions there is shelling, missile attacks, and drone attacks. Energy facilities are hit almost every day. Due to losses in the system, everyone has to reduce the limits," he added.

He also thanked power engineers and repair crews for their efforts in restoring power and maintaining the country's energy system, which Zelenskyy said "would have required months of work" but was restored in weeks.

Drone strikes hit energy infrastructure in the Odesa region late on Friday.

Ukraine's private energy provider DTEK announced on Saturday that the energy supply in the region was limited only to critical infrastructure due to the scale of the damage in the region's power grid.