Ukraine races to restore power after Russian missiles batter grid

Ukraine worked on Saturday to restore electricity and water supplies after Russia’s latest wave of attacks pitched multiple cities into darkness and forced people to endure sub-zero temperatures without heating or running water.

Russian bombardment

The volley of missiles unleashed on Friday came as President Vladimir Putin held extensive meetings with the military top brass overseeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where Moscow has stepped up bombardments.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said late on Saturday electricity had been restored to almost six million Ukrainians, but noted ongoing problems with heat and water supplies, and “large-scale outages” in many regions.

“The main thing today is energy,” he said in his nightly address. “There is still a lot of work to do to stabilise the system.”

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Emergency blackouts

In the capital Kyiv, the metro had stopped running so that people wrapped in winter coats could take shelter at underground stations, but Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Saturday the service had resumed.

Water supply had also been restored and 75% of the city’s population had their heating supply back.

In the eastern city of Kharkiv, power had also been fully returned, regional governor Oleg Sinegubov said on Saturday, after the strikes had left Ukraine’s second city without electricity.

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Ukraine’s national energy provider Ukrenergo had imposed emergency blackouts in response to the strikes, warning the extent of the damage in the north, south and centre of the country meant it could take longer to restore supplies than after previous attacks.

The country’s energy system “continues to recover”, it said on Saturday.

‘Barbaric’ attacks

In Russia, Putin sought proposals from his military commanders on how to proceed with the Ukraine offensive, according to the Kremlin.

The Kremlin released footage on Friday of Putin presiding over a round-table meeting with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov among other top brass.

After a series of humiliating battlefield defeats, Russia has since October pursued an aerial campaign against what Moscow says are military-linked facilities.

But France and the European Union have said the suffering inflicted on freezing civilians constitutes war crimes, with the bloc’s foreign policy chief calling the bombings “barbaric”.

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Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday the strikes had targeted Ukraine’s military and energy facilities, while also disrupting “the transfer of weapons and ammunition of foreign production”.

“All assigned targets were hit,” the ministry said in its daily briefing.

Russia fired 74 – mainly cruise – missiles Friday, 60 of which were shot down by anti-aircraft defences, according to the Ukrainian army.

Ukraine’s military command said in a statement on Saturday: “The enemy continues to focus its efforts on conducting offensive actions in the Bakhmut and Avdiivka directions,” referring to two cities in the eastern Donetsk region.

Russian troops were also trying to regain lost ground around Lymanskyi, in the south, the statement added.

Zelensky said the strikes hit power and water supplies in Kyiv and 14 regions.

Regional officials said their air defence forces had shot down 37 out of 40 missiles.

In the central city of Kryvyi Rih, where Zelensky was born, Friday’s air strikes hit a residential building.

The missiles killed a 64-year-old woman and a young couple with a son, governor Valentyn Reznichenko said on Saturday, wounding 13 others.

In the south, fresh Russian shelling in Kherson, recently recaptured by Ukraine, killed a 36-year-old man and injured a 70-year-old woman, governor Yaroslav Yanushevich said on Saturday morning.

A separate strike hit a geriatric centre in the village of Stepanivka just north of Kherson, he added later, but there were no casualties reported.

Kherson has been subjected to persistent Russian shelling since Moscow’s forces retreated in November, and power was cut in the city earlier this week.

Protracted war

Moscow has said the strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure are a response to an explosion on the Kerch bridge connecting the Russian mainland to the Crimean peninsula, annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Ukrainian defence officials said this week that their forces had downed over a dozen Iranian-made attack drones launched at Kyiv, a sign that Western-supplied systems are having an impact.

The country’s military leaders have also warned Moscow is preparing for a major winter offensive, including a fresh attempt to take Kyiv.

Russia meanwhile on Saturday accused Moldova of “political censorship” after it suspended the broadcasting licence of six television channels over accusations of misinformation.

Moldova – which sits on Ukraine’s southwestern border – said on Friday the decision was made because of the “lack of correct information” in their coverage of national events and Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine.

Moscow also responded to the EU’s decision Friday to impose further sanctions, adding restrictions on the export of drone engines to Russia or countries like Iran looking to supply Moscow with weapons.

The new package of “illegitimate unilateral restrictive measures” would not achieve its goal, Russia’s foreign ministry said on Saturday.

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