Home › Security › Kharkiv collapse and the strikes on Ukraine's power grid
Kharkiv collapse and the strikes on Ukraine's power grid
Summary
As Russian forces pulled back across Kharkiv Oblast, missile strikes hit power and water infrastructure in the north-east.
What did a retreating army do when it lost ground quickly? On 11 September 2022, the answer in north-eastern Ukraine was a wave of missile strikes on infrastructure, even as Russian forces withdrew from most of Kharkiv Oblast.
A rapid retreat
The Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kharkiv Oblast had begun on 6 September 2022, in the east, after Ukraine announced a separate offensive in the south in late August. By 9 September, Ukraine claimed to have retaken more than 1,000 square kilometres of territory previously occupied by Russia within the preceding week.
On 10 September, Ukrainian troops retook Balakliia, Kupiansk and Izium. The Russian Defence Ministry confirmed the withdrawal of troops from several towns in Kharkiv Oblast, saying the move would let its forces regroup and reinforce the Donbas.
By 11 September, Russian forces had withdrawn from most of the oblast, and the Russian occupation there was collapsing. Ukrainian soldiers retook Chkalovske and Velykyi Burluk. The governor of Belgorod Oblast, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said that thousands of civilians were fleeing across the border into his region.
Strikes on the grid
The same day, Russia fired Kalibr cruise missiles at critical infrastructure, including Kharkiv TEC-5. The strikes caused a total blackout and a water shutdown across north-eastern Ukraine, including Kharkiv and Donetsk Oblasts. Ukrainian officials confirmed that at least 40 electrical substations had been destroyed in the wave of strikes.
Civilian sites had already been hit in the run-up. On 9 September, the governor of Sumy Oblast, Dmytro Zhyvytskyi, said Russian forces had shelled a hospital in Velyka Pysarivka, causing an unspecified number of casualties.
What the day showed
The events of 11 September 2022 ran on two tracks. On the ground, Russian-held areas of Kharkiv Oblast were being given up in quick succession, including towns and cities that had been under occupation since the early stages of the invasion. Away from the front line, the missile strikes targeted the power and water systems on which civilians in the north-east depended.
Later accounts record that Russia held only a small portion of Kharkiv Oblast from November 2022. That was still in the future on 11 September, when the Russian Defence Ministry was describing its withdrawal as a regrouping and Belgorod's governor was reporting an outflow of civilians across the border.
