Ukraine struggles to restore power
Restoring electricity for heating is a do-or-die task as winter sets in.
KYIV, Ukraine (AFP) — Ukraine battled Friday to get water and power to millions of people cut off after Russia launched dozens of cruise missiles that battered the country’s already crippled electricity grid.
The energy system in Ukraine is on the brink of collapse and millions have endured emergency blackouts over recent weeks.
The World Health Organization has warned of “life-threatening” consequences and estimated that millions could leave their homes as a result.
“The situation with electricity remains difficult in almost all regions,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday evening. “However, we are gradually moving away from blackouts — every hour we return power to new consumers.”
More than 24 hours after Russian strikes smashed Kyiv, mayor Vitali Klitschko said late Thursday that 60 percent of homes in the capital were still suffering emergency outages. Water services had been fully restored however, said city officials.
But the shelling had killed seven people at Vyshgorod, on the outskirts of the city, Oleksiy Kuleba, head of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration, said.
And a fresh round of strikes Thursday killed at least four people in the southern city of Kherson, recently recaptured by Ukraine, a senior official there said.
The latest attacks on the power grid come with winter setting in and temperatures in the capital hovering just above freezing.
The western region of Khmelnytsky was one of the worst affected by power outages, with just 35 percent of its normal capacity, but that was enough to connect critical infrastructure, according to Serhii Hamaliy, the head of the regional administration.
About 300,000 residents in the eastern Kharkiv region, near the border with Russia, were still without power on Thursday evening, but electricity supply had been restored for nearly 70 percent of consumers, Oleh Synehubov of the regional military administration, said.
“We’ve restarted power supplies,” Igor Terekhov, mayor of Kharkiv city, said, adding that water was being restored to homes and municipal workers were reconnecting public transport.
Meanwhile, Russia’s defense ministry denied striking any targets inside Kyiv, insisting that Ukrainian and foreign air defense systems had caused the damage.
“Not a single strike was made on targets within the city of Kyiv,” it said.