Russian missile strikes force Ukraine to shut N-power plants
Russia rained down missiles across Ukraine on Wednesday, forcing shutdowns of nuclear power plants and killing civilians in Kyiv as Moscow pursued a campaign to plunge Ukrainian cities into darkness and cold with winter setting in. All of the capital region was without power, Kyiv’s governor said.
Officials across the border in Moldova said electricity was also lost to more than half of their country, the first time a neighbouring state has reported such extensive damage from the war in Ukraine triggered by Russia’s attack nine months ago.
Blackouts forced the shutdown of reactors at Ukraine’s Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant in the south and the Rivne and Khmelnitskyi plants in the west, all in government-held territory, the state-run nuclear energy firm Energoatom said.
“Currently, they (power units) work in project mode, without generation into the domestic energy system,” Energoatom said.
Ukraine’s largest nuclear complex, at Zaporizhzhia near the front lines in the south, is Russian controlled and was previously switched off because of shelling that both sides blame on each other.
Air raid sirens blared across Ukraine in a nationwide alert.
Explosions could be heard on the outskirts of Kyiv on Wednesday afternoon and at least three people in a residential block were killed including a 17-year-old girl, with at least 11 wounded, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
The ensuing power blackout was felt throughout the capital region, home to more than three million people, its governor said.
Most thermal and hydro-electric power plants were forced to shut down as well, Ukraine’s energy ministry said. As a result, it said, the great majority of electricity consumers in areas of the country under Ukrainian control were cut off.
Earlier, Russian missiles hit a maternity hospital in the Zaporizhzhia region overnight, killing a baby, the regional governor said on the Telegram messaging service.