Ukraine struggles to repair infra facilities after Russian strikes
Ukraine struggled on Thursday to repair its battered power and water services after Russia targeted the electricity grid with dozens of cruise missiles and temperatures plunged.
The Ukrainian energy system is on the brink of collapse and millions have been subjected to emergency blackouts for weeks due to systematic Russian bombardments of the grid.
The World Health Organisation has warned of “life-threatening” consequences and estimated that millions could leave their homes as a result.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said more than two-thirds of the capital was still cut off on Thursday despite municipal workers in Kyiv restoring some water service overnight.
“Seventy percent of the capital remains without electricity,” Klitschko said. “Energy companies are making every effort to return it as soon as possible.”
Ukraine’s military accused Russian forces of firing around 70 cruise missiles at targets across the country on Wednesday and of deploying attack drones.
Russian demands
The Kremlin on Thursday denied that its attacks on Ukraine’s electricity network were aimed at civilians, but said Kyiv could “end the suffering” of its population by meeting Russia’s demands to resolve the conflict.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “there have been no strikes on ‘social’ targets and there are none - special attention is paid to this”. “As for targets that are directly or indirectly related to military potential, they are accordingly subject to strikes.”
Peskov was asked how the suffering of Ukraine’s civilian population could be reconciled with President Vladimir Putin’s positions. Putin has said Russia does not wish to destroy Ukraine or its people.
“The leadership of Ukraine has every opportunity to bring the situation back to normal, has every opportunity to resolve the situation in such a way as to fulfil the requirements of the Russian side and, accordingly, end all possible suffering among the population.”
Sabotage attempt
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday that it had prevented Ukrainian special services from carrying out what it said was sabotage on the “South Stream” gas pipeline.
“As a result of a set of investigative measures, [the FSB] prevented an attempt by Ukrainian special services to commit an act of sabotage and terrorism on the South Stream gas pipeline supplying energy resources to Turkey and Europe,” the FSB said.
It was not immediately clear which pipeline the FSB was referring to.
South Stream, originally intended to transport Russian gas under the Black Sea to the Bulgarian coast, was scrapped in 2014 in favour of TurkStream, which makes landfall in Turkey and can supply gas to Hungary and Bulgaria.