Odessa Under Attack and Without Power: How a Series of Strikes on Energy and Infrastructure Is Changing the City and Business Operations
Time for Action has gathered data on a series of massive attacks on Odessa and the region in December 2025 and analyzed how strikes on energy infrastructure, residential neighborhoods, port facilities, and transport hubs are transforming the city’s daily life and forcing businesses to operate in an expensive survival mode. The context is important: the article records the situation and consequences as of December 19, but the key wave of destruction and outages began after the strike on the night of December 13, and since then Odessa has effectively been living under conditions of a prolonged blackout and repeated attacks.
On the night of December 13, Russia carried out a massive attack on Odessa and the region, damaging residential and administrative buildings, energy facilities, and port infrastructure. According to the Odessa Regional Military Administration, approximately 300 aerial targets were launched at the region, including about 130 Shahed drones. The shelling affected facilities of the Odessa Sea Port, where grain storage facilities caught fire. The consequences for the city were immediate and direct: a significant part of Odessa was left without electricity, water, and heating, electric transport stopped, and buses were launched on tram and trolleybus routes to transport passengers.
This strike was not an isolated incident. Over the past week, starting from December 13, Russians attacked Odessa and the region at least four times, and it was precisely the repetition that became the main factor of exhaustion. On the night of December 19, another massive attack on Odessa took place, damaging an energy infrastructure facility. As a result, residents of one of the city’s largest residential districts were left without electricity, water, and heating. At the same time, railway infrastructure was also damaged. According to Ukrzaliznytsia CEO Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, a post was smashed at one of the stations. Thus, this is not only about darkness in apartments, but also about targeted pressure on the region’s ability to move people and goods.
An important detail of this period is the official assessment of the threat level. On December 17, the Odessa Regional Military Administration stated that the situation had been classified as a state-level emergency. Local authorities were advised to limit the use of illuminations and direct funds from the reserve fund to the purchase of fuel for generators powering critical infrastructure. This shows that the problem has ceased to be a local energy incident and has moved into the sphere of state response, where fuel and the ability to maintain autonomous power supply become key resources.
At the energy sector level, the picture also shows that restoration no longer resembles the repair of a single line or substation. After the massive attack, DTEK began restoring the damaged facilities and later noted that the energy system of the Odessa region had been virtually rebuilt from scratch, with most of the region powered by temporary backup schemes. However, even when trunk solutions are found, another wave of problems arises: due to a sharp load on the networks, thousands of local outages occur, leaving some buildings still without power. As of December 17, 2025, the company managed to restore electricity to 585 thousand households, while approximately 32.9 thousand homesremained without power. In parallel, another episode of strikes was recorded: on the night of December 12, Russia attacked energy facilities in the Odessa region, leaving more than 90 thousand consumers without electricity. DTEK reported that an energy facility in the Odessa region was damaged this is already the 20th substation of the companydestroyed in 2025. By morning, power engineers managed to re-energize nearly 40 thousand consumers, while approximately 91.9 thousand households remained without power. Specialists were clearing debris, assessing the scale of destruction, and forming temporary repair schemes, with electricity supplied first of all to critical infrastructure facilities. An energy facility of another energy company was also hit.
These figures explain the main point: Odessa is living in a mode where the energy system is holding on to temporary solutions, and normal life depends on how well the networks withstand overloads. Outages in such a system become not only a consequence of destruction, but also a result of switching the network to an emergency mode. Hence the prolonged nature of the blackout.
Against this background, city businesses are forced to operate as part of critical resilience, although formally they are not part of the state sector. The survival model is almost everywhere the same: generators, reserve water supplies, signal boosters, changes in schedules, and accumulating fuel costs. But in essence this means that Odessa’s economy has partially shifted into an autonomous mode with higher costs and lower predictability.
Foundation Coffee Roasters note that the company, like most Odessa establishments, has switched to generators. Autonomous operation has been set up at the production facility and in the coffee shop: they use water reservoirs, communication boosters, and generators. They accept anyone who wants to charge devices or work, and the team tries to minimize the impact of outages on operations. Their direct statement captures a motive that has become characteristic for many in December: “We, like all Odessa businesses, work mainly on generators. It is important for us to keep the pace and support the economy.”
Nova Poshta reported that despite the blackout it continues operating in Odessa, with 147 city branches working on generators for a week, accepting and issuing shipments. Branches are open as points of resilience, where people can charge phones, access the internet, and keep warm. This highlights another aspect: large networks in such conditions become not just businesses, but elements of social resilience.
McDonald’s emphasized that all restaurants in Odessa are equipped with generators, but operations are complicated by the fact that establishments cannot function without water supply. Due to night air raid alerts, schedules had to be changed: restaurants open later so that staff have time to prepare the premises. Their position on safety is stated directly: “Regular and prolonged air raid alerts significantly reduce the actual operating time of restaurants. We strictly adhere to safety protocols, so during alerts establishments close and employees go to shelters.” This is an important detail for understanding the wartime economy: even having a generator does not guarantee operation if there is no water and if schedules are constantly cut by alerts.
Villa Tinta shows another type of adaptation through investment. The company purchased 60 kW of solar panels and a diesel generator to continue operations, but the cost of electricity has become twice as high. Co-owner Kostiantyn Tintulov explained the seasonal trap for business: “Before the New Year we are forced to work, because this is the period of maximum shipments.” However, an infrastructure strike adds a new level of risk: on December 18, 2025, Russians hit the bridge across the Dniester Liman in the Odessa region. His assessment of the consequences sounds like a snapshot of the region’s logistical vulnerability: “Now the whole of Bessarabia is cut off as well, and that is 500–600 thousand people.” He further describes direct losses in the supply chain: at Villa Tinta, two trucks and 17 pallets did not pass and are stuck in line. For the economy, this means that strikes on transport hubs do not merely create inconvenience they block the circulation of goods precisely when demand and shipments are at their peak.
Silpo describes its role in the region as a network that has effectively taken on part of the population support functions. Each supermarket in the region is a “living room” where devices can be charged, and the company reports that it operates at full capacity, with significantly more visitors to these points than usual, but all of them are operating in normal mode. This is further evidence that part of the business sector has turned into infrastructure of everyday resilience.
The broader context of energy terror is complemented by data from the Ministry of Energy: over the past year, Russia has launched 1.8 thousand missiles, 50 thousand drones, and made 4.5 thousand attempts to destroy energy facilities across Ukraine. In this statistic, Odessa appears not as an exception, but as an example of how repeated strikes turn restoration into a continuous process, where the system lives on temporary schemes and constantly loses resources.
December attacks on Odessa produced three interconnected consequences. The first is energy-related: the region is holding on to backup schemes, and local outages become a mass phenomenon due to overloads, prolonging the blackout even after key nodes are restored. The second is infrastructural: damage to railways, port facilities, and the bridge across the Dniester Liman shifts the problem from the level of comfort to the level of economic and logistical resilience. The third is economic and social: businesses operating on generators, water reserves, and altered schedules are effectively compensating for part of the system’s failures, but at the cost of rising expenses, reduced productivity, and accumulating risks. The city does not stop, but it works more expensively, more slowly, and under constant uncertainty. In this reality, the greatest challenge is not only to restore power, but to preserve the controllability of a system where each new strike hits energy, logistics, and the daily ability of people and companies to live and work simultaneously.
About the Author
Related posts:
Energy Terror and the Country’s Response: Anatomy of the Massive Attack on Kyiv and Ukraine 
Energy War: Why Russia Keeps Targeting Ukraine’s Infrastructure 
November 2025: How Political Crisis, Energy Strikes and the US Peace Plan Changed Ukraine 
Power Outages in Autumn 2025: How the Energy Sector Changes Under the Pressure of Attacks
