Energy Minister Names Reason For Large-scale Blackout In Ukraine

• 31.01.2026, 15:52

Zelensky has already heard the reports.

In the morning of January 31, a technological disruption occurred between the power systems of Romania, Moldova and Ukraine with a simultaneous power outage. This caused a cascading blackout.

This was reported by Ukrainian Energy Minister Denis Shmygal.

"Today at 10:42 a.m. there was a technological violation with simultaneous disconnection of the 400 kV line between the power systems of Romania and Moldova and the 750 kV line between the western and central parts of Ukraine," Shmygal said.

According to him, it caused a cascade disconnection in the power grid of Ukraine and triggering of automatic protections at substations. Units of nuclear power plants were unloaded.

Now special emergency shutdown schedules have been applied in Kiev, Kiev, Zhitomir, Kharkiv regions.

"Ukrenergo power engineers are working to restore power supply. Within the next few hours, the light will be restored," the minister added.

The Ministry of Energy specified that according to experts' forecasts, power supply will return within the next 2-3 hours.

Zelensky's reaction

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said he had already heard reports from Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko and Energy Minister Denis Shmygal on the emergency situation in Ukraine's energy system.

"There is all the necessary response at the level of the Ukrainian energy system, restoration work is taking place. The task is to stabilize the situation in the near future," - said the head of Ukraine.