From the source I have come to trust the most….
From a pro-Russian source…..
It is too early tell what the results of this are. The power went out over large swaths of Ukraine but the real testament to how bad the damage is will come from how long the power stays out. Some bloggers are reporting that the power came back on as they were in the process of making their video.
Figuring out the long term damage is not as simple as figuring out which targets got hit. If a power plant got hit, the first thing they are going to do is shut the thing down and figure out the damage. It may turn out that that only one turbine was damaged and hole was made the wall. They clean up the mess and put the undamaged turbines back on-line and at least some capacity is back on line in short order. Or it could turn out that the critical controls for the entire plant were put out action and the plant cannot run until they are replaced and parts to enable the plant have a six month lead time. In extreme cases, the entire plant may be flattened and the entire plant will have to be rebuilt for scratch. But so far, Russia does not seem to be having that kind of success.
From the early reports, it does not seem like the strikes were all that successful given the amount that Russia invested into the attacks. Part of that is due to the fact that Russia seems to have prioritized hitting a lot of different targets over thoroughness on a few critical targets. Part of that is they seemed to have had a lot of malfunctions (maybe some of that is due to Ukrainian air defenses but I am skeptical).
But the biggest problem the Russians have is that they just don’t have the capacity to do this right. When NATO wanted to force Serbia to bend the knee, they spent 78 days and launched 10,484 strike sorties. And this was on a much smaller country then Ukraine. By comparison, 130+ some missiles and drones (accounts vary) is weak sauce.
While on the subject of NATO, I should note that while Russia is a hypocrite for calling the attacks on the bridge a terrorist attack when it would fit most nations (including their own) definition of a valid military target, NATO did strike power plants in Serbia when they were trying to force them to withdraw from Kosovo. So keep that in mind when you hear people talking about how terrible Russia is for attacking civilian power plants (NATO called them dual use targets). That said, Russians thought that the attacks on Serbia’s power plants was horrible crime….