Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, was largely without electricity and running water on Wednesday, a day after a new spate of Russian bombings of several energy infrastructures in the country.
Nine months after the start of the Russian invasion, millions of Ukrainians will spend the day without electricity or heating and in Kiev, already affected by typical winter weather conditions (rain and snow), about 70% of the capital’s population was without electricity. energy this Wednesday morning, the city council said.
The water supply was restored in the early afternoon, according to the same source, at a time when the temperature was barely above zero degrees Celsius.
The Russian Defense Ministry assured that the bombings would not reach Kiev and accused the Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense of being responsible for the damage in the capital.
In Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city close to the border with Russia, “problems with electricity supply” persisted, said the region’s governor Oleg Synegoubov.
The rest of Ukraine was also badly affected by the power cuts, which have been gradually restored.
Health authorities are particularly concerned about the effect of power cuts on the population, when temperatures in Ukraine reach very low levels.
“Blackouts in Ukraine caused by attacks on electricity infrastructure put millions of citizens at risk. (…) As winter approaches and temperatures drop, it will affect people in areas near and far from the front, who have been displaced by very difficult circumstances in the last eight months”Doctors Without Borders’ general coordinator, Christopher Stokes, said this Wednesday.
During a video conference intervention before the UN Security Council, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday denounced Russian attacks on energy infrastructure and classified them as a “crime against humanity”.
In recent hours, the three nuclear power plants under Kiev’s control have been reconnected to the power grid and are expected to be able to provide homes without power by this Wednesday evening.
“If there are no new attacks, we can significantly reduce the (electricity) shortage in the electricity system by the end of the day”said Ukrainian Energy Minister Guerman Galushchenko.
Russia fired about 70 cruise missiles at Ukraine on Wednesday, of which 51 were shot down, according to Kiev.
The attacks mainly targeted energy infrastructure, which had already been damaged by other bombings.
In total, “eight power stations” were affected, Ukrainian Attorney General Andri Kostine said, adding that 10 people had died and another 50 were injured.
The military offensive launched by Russia in Ukraine on February 24 has already led to the flight of more than 13 million people — more than six million internally displaced persons and more than 7.8 million to European countries — according to the latest data of the UN, which classifies this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).
The Russian invasion – justified by the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, with the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russian security – was condemned by the international community at large, which responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and Russia political and economic sanctions.
The UN presented 6,595 civilian deaths and 10,189 wounded as confirmed since the start of the war, underlining that these numbers are well below the real ones.
Source: DN
