Fresh wave of Ukrainian refugees expected
KYIV: Eastern European countries are preparing for a possible wave of Ukrainian refugees as Russia targets power and heating plants ahead of winter, with President Volodymyr Zelensky saying about four million people are already without power.
Zelensky said 14 regions plus the capital Kyiv were without power and Ukraine’s electrical grid operator Ukrenergo said scheduled hourly power outages would affect the whole of the country.
Russian forces have targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with missiles and drone strikes in the run-up to winter, when mean temperatures typically drop to several degrees below 0°C, with lows of -20°C.
Some 6.9 million people are believed displaced internally within Ukraine and east European countries such as Slovakia and Hungary are preparing for an influx in coming months.
“An increase in numbers is being felt, and is expected. It is currently up 15%,” said Roman Dohovic, an aid coordinator for the eastern Slovak city of Kosice.
Ukrainian forces have been on the offensive in recent months while Russia is regrouping to defend areas of Ukraine it still occupies, having called up hundreds of thousands of reservists over the past month.
Zelensky said his forces would not yield “a single centimetre” in battles for the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk while Russian-installed officials said Ukrainian forces were moving into a southern town with tanks.
The focal points of the conflict in the industrial region of Donetsk are around the towns of Bakhmut, Soledar and Avdiivka, which have seen the heaviest fighting since Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February.
“The activity of the occupiers remains at an extremely high level, with dozens of attacks every day,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address on Tuesday.
“They are suffering extraordinarily high losses. But the order remains the same, to advance on the administrative boundary of Donetsk region. We will not yield a single centimetre of our land.”
The region is one of four Russia said it annexed in September. – Reuters