Dry faucets, shuttered storefronts, pitch-black homes and residents camping outside City Hall to charge their devices.
A Ukrainian drone campaign against Crimea’s power grid has left hundreds of thousands of people in the Russia-held territory without electricity for days at a time.
“Power went off and didn’t come back on, even for an hour,” for 15 days, said Olga, who lives with her husband and their baby in northern Crimea. They often had no running water, either. “Authorities have forgotten about us, that’s clear to see,” she said by telephone.
Like others interviewed for this article, she asked that her last name be withheld for safety reasons.
The attack on energy infrastructure in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014, mirrors the much larger, yearslong Russian aerial assault on Ukraine’s civilian energy systems, which leaves millions of Ukrainians without light or heat each winter.
Battering Crimea’s grid, like the Ukrainian strikes against oil refineries that have created fuel shortages in Russia, was meant to raise pressure on the Kremlin to negotiate a peace deal. But President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has not publicly acknowledged the blackouts.
The intensive Ukrainian campaign began in June, mostly aimed at infrastructure near Russian military bases in northern Crimea, which borders Ukrainian lands occupied by Russia since its 2022 full-scale invasion. By late July, every major town and village in the north of the peninsula had suffered full blackouts.
But unpredictable, hourslong cuts are reported across the peninsula. Every municipality has been affected, even in touristy southern Crimea. Blackouts have idled water pumps, and even in less affected areas like Yalta, a southern resort city, residents say running water comes on only for three hours a day.
Crimean officials have not publicized the extent of the blackouts, merely assuring residents that they were working on it. But a top Russian diplomat told the state-owned Tass news agency that in a single week, Ukrainian strikes had cut power to the homes of 1.4 million Crimeans, out of a prewar population of 2.5 million.
Nighttime illumination across Crimea fell to less than 20 percent of normal in early July, according to an analysis of satellite images by Meduza, a Russian-language news outlet.
“There’s an understanding that this is not just for a day or two,” said Rustem, a hairdresser from central Crimea. He said people were trying to get generators, solar panels and power converters.
Locals are also “beginning to think if it’s time to leave, and if so, where to,” he added.
Families have struggled to stay in touch with their loved ones in the north, where power cuts have crippled cellphone reception. The authorities in the resort town of Yevpatoriya last week said they had installed pay phones, artifacts of another era.
Already rattled by severe gasoline shortages, some tourists and Crimeans chose to leave the peninsula earlier this summer.
But most are staying. Olga, the woman who lives with her husband and baby in northern Crimea, settled in the town of Dzhankoi in 2021, and does not think she is up for another big move.
Dzhankoi was first plunged into darkness at the end of June, but power was soon partly restored. A week later, Ukrainian strikes hit two local power substations, causing the 15-day blackout. On Tuesday, residents started getting two hours of electricity a day, but at a high voltage that could be dangerous for appliances.
Olga, 24, counts herself lucky, because her family, living in a cottage rather than an apartment, can use a generator. But it cannot power the refrigerator, limiting food options. Her husband makes a long journey across the bridge to southern Russia to buy cheaper gas for it, but running the generator for five hours costs about $20, a hefty price for Russians.
Olga said she still expects the authorities to rise to the task, but she also referred to a topic most Russians fear to broach. People not only need basic services restored, she said, they need “the end of the war.”
Even in central Crimea, where blackouts are less severe, the train station is shuttered. So are many stores, with “no power” signs on their doors. Supermarket shelves are not well stocked.
Blackouts have caught Rustem at his salon in the middle of cutting someone’s hair. But with scissors and a battery-powered shaver, he said, “As long as I have daylight coming from the window, I’m fine.”
Crimean residents said they knew people who had lost their jobs or were furloughed at idled factories in the north. Officials have promised some financial compensation to tourism-related businesses, but have not commented on reports of closed factories.
Ukrainian officials say they are striking Crimea to undermine Russia’s military capabilities. President Volodymyr Zelensky in a speech last month said he expected Crimeans to understand that Ukraine was not targeting them.
But Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s drone forces, bragged in a statement on Wednesday about “turning off the switch on Crimea.” In the first three weeks of July, Ukraine hit 117 energy infrastructure targets there, he said.
Crimea was woefully unprepared for the crisis. In the fourth week of blackouts, officials there were still pledging to equip every hospital with a generator.
Russia has offered a one-time payment of 15,000 rubles, about $190, to residents who lost power for more than 48 hours, which would not cover the cost of buying and running a small generator.
But outside Crimea, Russians could easily be unaware of the crisis. State television has avoided showing images from the blackout-hit areas, and insists that all needs there are being met. Lifestyle bloggers post videos of idyllic Crimean beaches and sunsets to counter what they dismiss as Ukrainian propaganda.
At a meeting Mr. Putin held with top officials this month, discussion touched on fuel supplies to Crimea, but made no mention of drone strikes the night before that had plunged the north into darkness.
Revealing the full scale of the problem to the public would mean admitting a weakness the Kremlin does not want ordinary Russians to see, said Ilya Shepelin, an exiled Russian journalist who studies TV propaganda.
But online, some Crimeans have been speaking out, flooding the social media of Sergei Aksyonov, the Kremlin-appointed head of Crimea, with comments expressing their frustration.
Alexei, a man from Crimea’s south, wondered “how it was possible” that the power grid was so defenseless, and said he “did not know how to keep on living” without working communications. He confirmed his remarks to The New York Times but said he did not feel safe saying more.
Recently a business owner posted a cry for help on social media, asking friends and colleagues to help deliver drinking water to the north.
Olga Gerasimenko, who has coordinated water deliveries, posted a video from Thursday’s visit to Dzhankoi, showing several hundred people, most elderly, lining up for aid.
In a rare dispatch from the north, state-owned Crimea Vesti TV last weekend showed dozens of women and children sitting on the lawn of the municipal building in Krasnoperekopsk, tethered to phones and power banks that they were charging from a generator. It did not mention a drinking water shortage.
“All these problems do not deter Crimeans who are used to Ukrainian provocations,” the broadcast said.
But denialism has its limits. A week into the north’s complete blackout, a luxury seaside resort in the south, owned by Russia’s major state bank, threw a lavish party with thousands of dressed-up revelers, huge LED screens, go-go dancers and fireworks.
Visitors were “teleported from our rotten present into a fairy-tale,” Alexandra Moroz, a local resident, wrote on social media.
Then a drone attack cut the festivities short, sending guests, clutching their drinks, scurrying into the basement.
Nataliia Novosolova contributed reporting from Kyiv.
