Fading lights in Ukraine mapped

Ukraine has suffered ongoing damage to their power infrastructure since the invasion began. Bloomberg mapped the damage through the lens of lights from above.

A Bloomberg News analysis of satellite imagery collected by NASA found that Kharkiv City experienced a 94% drop in the intensity of nighttime lights in the autumn of 2024 when compared to three years before Russia’s invasion. The northeast Ukrainian city’s dramatic change in satellite-detected lighting ranks third of all cities, urban areas and other communities, after Nikopol and Avdiyivka.

Bloomberg averaged pixels before and after the invasion. Be sure to click through to see the lights fade in and out as an animation.

You can download the satellite imagery data through NASA, updated daily since 2012. It amazes me every time when I’m reminded that such detailed data is openly available and easy to access.