What happened

Ukrainian monitoring channels Exilenova+ and Falcon Intel reported that drones struck the Luhansk thermal power plant at Shchastia and started a fire while widespread electricity outages affected Russian-occupied parts of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. No authoritative source had confirmed the strike, assigned responsibility, quantified damage or established that the reported plant fire caused the entire blackout. Public reference material also describes the plant as having been shut down and severely damaged in 2022, which conflicts with newer media claims that it was again supplying most electricity used in the occupied region. The event is therefore retained at investigation-level confidence, without repeating the unverified 80-percent supply claim as fact.

When cited sources give different casualty, damage or spill figures for this event, they’re reported side by side above rather than merged into one number. See how confidence levels work.