Russian air attack knocks out power for over a million Ukrainians
By Max Hunder
January 24 (Reuters) – Russia launched another major attack on Ukraine’s energy system early on Saturday morning, shaking Kiev with explosions overnight and leaving 1.2 million properties across the country without power in the sub-zero winter cold.
More than 3,000 buildings in the capital had no heating systems as temperatures hovered around -10 degrees Celsius (14 F); On Saturday evening, this number was 6,000 in the morning.
Many residents’ apartments were already freezing cold due to the breakdown of Kiev’s central heat distribution system following the earlier attacks.
Moscow carried out the attacks as US-brokered trilateral talks between Russia and Ukraine continued for a second day in the United Arab Emirates and later ended without any signs of compromise.
Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said Russia was targeting the capital and four regions in the north and east of the country.
“We are rapidly repairing damaged electricity generation facilities, increasing imports as much as possible and commissioning new alternative capacity,” he said.
Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that one person died in the capital, four people were injured, three of them had to be hospitalized, and more than 30 people, including a child, were injured in Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv.
Klitschko visited the northeastern suburb of Troyeshchyna, the worst-hit area of Kiev; 600 buildings here were deprived of electricity, water and heat.
He said vulnerable residents were given hot food and medicine, and the city opened extra heated shelters in the area to operate around the clock.
Kiev recently relaxed its wartime military curfew, allowing people in freezing apartments to move into heated tents or public buildings at night.
Russia, which has been devastating Ukraine’s power grid since November 2022, nine months into its full-scale invasion, is carrying out its heaviest bombardment campaign of energy facilities this winter, leaving people in Ukraine with only a few hours of electricity a day and some without heat and water.
Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said that more than 800,000 people in the capital and 400,000 in the northern region of Chernihiv were left without electricity after the latest attacks.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia fired 375 drones and 21 missiles, including two of its rarely deployed Tsirkon ballistic missiles, in the night attack.
The sky above Kiev was lit up with steady orange lights as air defenses opened fire on missiles and drones descending on the capital. Loud explosions echoed through the tall buildings of the city.
Timur Tkachenko, the head of Kiev’s military administration, reported strikes in at least four regions. Among the damaged buildings was a medical facility.
Before Saturday, Kiev had suffered two mass night attacks since the New Year, knocking out electricity and heating to hundreds of residential buildings.
Emergency workers were still trying to restore services to residents affected by these attacks, and Klitschko said Saturday that most of the buildings that lost heat had recently been restored.
In Kharkiv, 30 km (18 miles) from the Russian border and much closer to the eastern war fronts, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said 25 drones hit several areas.
Writing on Telegram, Terekhov said drones hit a dormitory for displaced persons and two medical facilities, including a maternity hospital.
(Reporting by Max Hunder and Ron Popeski; Editing by Chris Reese, Tom Hogue and Mark Heinrich)
