Power outages in Ukrainian cities and Moldova after new strikes
Authorities have reported power outages in several Ukrainian cities, including parts of Kyiv, as well as in neighbouring Moldova after renewed strikes on Ukraine’s infrastructure.
Several regions reported attacks in quick succession, suggesting a barrage of strikes, with critical infrastructure being targeted.
The Kyiv city administration said three people were dead and three others had been wounded in the country’s capital after a Russian strike hit a two-storey building.
It comes after a Russian rocket struck the maternity wing of a hospital in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, killing a two-day-old boy and critically injuring a doctor.
The overnight explosion left the small-town hospital a crumbled mess of bricks, medical supplies scattered across the small compound.
Following the overnight strike in Vilniansk, close to the city of Zaporizhzhia, the baby’s mother and a doctor were pulled alive from the rubble. The region’s governor said the rockets were Russian.
The strike adds to the gruesome toll suffered by hospitals and other medical facilities in the Russian invasion that will enter its tenth month this week.
Patients and staff have been in the firing line from the outset, including a March 9 air strike that destroyed a maternity hospital in the now-occupied port city of Mariupol.
Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska wrote on Twitter of the latest hospital attack: “Horrible pain – we will never forget and never forgive.”
Russia has been pounding the power grid and other facilities with missiles and exploding drones for weeks, in an apparent bid to turn the cold and dark of winter into a weapon.
Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said “one of the capital’s infrastructure facilities has been hit” and there were “several more explosions in different districts” of the city. It was not clear whether the explosions were caused by air defence systems at work or Russian projectiles hitting targets.
He also said water supplies had been knocked out in all of Kyiv. There were power outages in parts of Kyiv, in the northern city of Kharkiv, the western city of Lviv and in the southern Odesa region.
In Moldova, infrastructure minister Andrei Spinu said “we have massive power outages across the country”. There was a similar outage on November 15.
Kharkiv’s mayor said power was out in the city, Ukraine’s second largest, and all public transport had stopped running. Lviv regional governor
Maksym Kozytskyy reported “two missile strikes on a power substation” in the region, and several districts of the region have been left without power. The entire Kyiv region is now without electricity, according to governor Oleksiy Kuleba.
State-owned grid operator Ukrenergo said Russia’s missile attack was continuing, with emergency shutdowns in all regions.
It said: “This is a necessary step to protect power grids from additional technological accidents and support the operation of the power system.” Repair work is scheduled to begin when air raid sirens cease.