trying to shore up more assistance from the united states as his country enters the cold winter months with a battered energy system. in a telephone call sunday volodymyr zelenskyy told u.s. president joe biden was strikes had destroyed about half of ukraine s energy system. he thanked mr. biden for allocating aid to help rebuild the energy grid and for another defense aid package. right now ukrainians in several regions are struggling in the dark amid massive power shutdowns. mr. zelenskyy says odesa has been impacted the most after russia s latest attacks on the energy infrastructure. cnn s will rippley is in odesa and takes a look at the challenging situation in the port city. reporter: a race to restore electricity to parts of southern ukraine this weekend. more than 1.5 million people in the odesa region alone plunged into darkness at the peak of the
outages. ukraine s president volodymyr zelenskyy blames the blackouts on russian saelf-detonating drones made by iran. translator: after the night strike odesa and the cities and other villages and region are in the dark. reporter: ukraine s military says it shot down ten out of 15 explosive drones russia fired friday night. the energy authority warned stabilizing the power grid could take weeks even months. before the blackouts, the black sea and vibrant nightlife made this southern port city a tourist hot spot. with the war came a flood of internally displaced ukrainians, increasing of the population of one of ukraine s largest cities. now this city of refuge is facing regular russian attacks. odesa s power station also took a direct hit last week when russia fired dozens of missiles at targets nationwide. an ongoing assault on ukraine s