Russian strikes force Ukraine to face hours-long power cuts
KYIV, UKRAINE — Ukraine’s electricity grid chief warned of hours-long power outages Friday as Russia zeroed in on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with heavy artillery and missile attacks that have interrupted supplies to as much as 40% of the country’s people at the onset of winter.
Freezing temperatures are putting additional pressure on energy networks, grid operator Ukrenergo said.
“You always need to prepare for the worst. We understand that the enemy wants to destroy our power system in general, to cause long outages,” Ukrenergo’s chief executive Volodymyr Kudrytskyi told Ukrainian state television. “We need to prepare for possible long outages, but at the moment we are introducing schedules that are planned and will do everything to ensure that the outages are not very long.”
Kyiv is already facing a “huge deficit in electricity,” Mayor Vitali Klitschko told The Associated Press. Some 1.5 million to 2 million people — about half of the city’s population — are periodically plunged into darkness as authorities switch electricity from one district to another. “It’s a critical situation,” he said.
Klitschko added that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military planners apparently are hoping “to bring us, everyone, to depression,” to make people feel unsafe and “to think about, ‘Maybe we give up.’” But it won’t work, he said.
“It’s wrong, it’s (a) wrong vision of Putin,” he said. “After every rocket attack, I talk to the people, to simple civilians. They (are) not depressed. They were angry; angry and ready to stay and defend our houses, our families and our future.”
Kudrytskyi added that the power situation at critical facilities such as hospitals has been stabilized. Those facilities were targeted overnight in the northeastern Kharkiv region, where energy equipment was damaged, according to governor Oleh Syniehubov. Eight people were injured trying to clear up the debris, he said.
Moscow’s attacks on Ukraine’s energy and power facilities have fueled fears of what deep winter will bring. Ukraine’s energy infrastructure had again been targeted Thursday, two days after Russia unleashed more than 100 missiles and drones that knocked out power to 10 million people nationwide.
Those attacks have also affected neighboring countries like Moldova, where a half-dozen cities experienced temporary blackouts.
In the past 24 hours, Russian forces attacked Ukraine’s southeast, employing drones, rockets, heavy artillery and warplanes that killed at least six civilians and wounded six others, the president’s office said.