Ukraine races to restore power after strikes

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainians scrambled to repair damage and restart services Saturday, a day after one of the heaviest Russian missile assaults on infrastructure killed at least five people and knocked out power and water in many of the country’s main cities.

With Ukrainians already on edge about further strikes, new explosions rang out over the port city of Odessa Saturday, and air raid alerts sounded across the country. Despite the continuing attacks, rescue and utility workers worked to restore electricity and water supplies knocked out in the large wave of strikes Friday on power plants and electricity networks.

Ukraine’s general staff said Saturday that the Russians had launched 98 missiles and 65 rockets fired from multiple rocket systems aimed at civilian and energy infrastructure targets in that barrage. The military previously had put the figure at 76 missiles, and although it was not immediately clear why the count changed, information in the initial hours after an attack is frequently incomplete.

Ukrainian officials said 60 missiles were shot down before they could reach their targets, but 14 regions lost power and running water in the hours after the strikes.

In the southern town of Kryvyi Rih, rescue workers pulled the body of an 18month-old boy from the wreckage of a home in the early hours of Saturday, raising the death toll from a Russian missile strike the previous day to four. As missiles struck a power plant in the town Friday, knocking out electricity in the city, a missile also hit a residential building. The toddler’s parents and a 64year-old woman were killed in the strike, which also injured 13 others.

Since Ukraine succeeded in pushing back Russian forces and regaining territory on the battlefield in eastern and southern Ukraine in recent months, Moscow has turned to a strategy of attacking power plants and energy supplies to increase the pressure on the Ukrainian government by causing heightened suffering among the civilian population.

Ukrainians have responded with defiance, and the government has sought to bolster morale by repairing the damage as swiftly as possible.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on local authorities to partner with businesses to create additional neighborhood gathering points, called “invincibility centers,” where people can congregate to keep warm, share news and recharge their cell phones. Powered by generators or emergency electricity supplies, the centers have been set up in administration buildings, in shopping centers and in tents on streets around the country to provide some respite for people living without heating and power in freezing temperatures.

The city of Kherson, which has come under repeated Russian rocket and shell fire since Ukrainian forces recaptured it last month after Russian forces retreated across the Dnieper River, was hit again in recent days, Halyna Luhova, head of the city military administration, said Saturday.

“Part of the population is left without electricity, then our specialists restore it,” she said. “This is an ongoing process: A part is restored, then a part is damaged again.”

Withdrawing Russian troops destroyed much of Kherson city’s energy and utility systems, but the Ukrainian administration has restored electricity in most areas, and 70% to 80% of the population has running water and heating, she said. Still, up to 10,000 people in an area close to the river’s edge have been living under constant attack with no power, heating or water.

By Saturday morning, the Kyiv subway was running again, Mayor Ivan Klitschko said on the Telegram social media app. Water was back on, and electricity had been restored to a large part of the city.

Chris McGrath/Getty Images Ukrainian soldiers patrol a debris-covered street in Bakhmut, a city in the eastern Donetsk region that Russian forces have battled for months to capture.