Ukraine working to restore power after crushing Russian strike – National

About 70% of the Ukrainian capital has lost power, the mayor of Kyiv said on Thursday, a day after Moscow unleashed yet another devastating barrage of missiles and drones on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

A new Russian attack on Ukraine’s infrastructure on Wednesday brought power outages across much of the country, further disrupting Ukraine’s already battered power grid and adding to civilian misery as temperatures dropped. The strike also caused power outages in neighboring Moldova.

Russia has targeted Ukraine’s power infrastructure, following a series of battlefield setbacks suffered by its forces during the all-out war that began on Thursday, February 24, just nine months ago.

“Electricity engineers are doing their best to restore (electricity) as soon as possible,” Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a telegram statement, adding that water supply was restored in about half of Kyiv on the left bank of the Dnieper. added. .

The Ukrainian General Staff said on Thursday morning that Russian forces launched 67 cruise missiles and 10 aircraft during Wednesday’s “massive attacks on residential and energy infrastructure” in Kyiv and several other parts of Ukraine. of drones have been launched.

Efforts to restore power, heating and water supplies disrupted by Wednesday’s attacks were also underway elsewhere in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Energy Minister Herman Kharshenko said three of the four fully functioning nuclear power plants forced to shut down by Wednesday’s strike have since been reconnected to the grid.

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Poltava region governor Dmitro Lunin said the “optimistic scenario” suggested that electricity would return to residents of his central region of Ukraine on Thursday.

“In the next few hours, we will start supplying energy to critical infrastructure and then to the bulk of our home consumers,” Lunin said on Telegram, adding that 15,500 people in the region and 1,500 He pointed out that power to the corporation had already been restored.

Lunin added that water supply was resumed in some areas of the city of Poltava and four boiler stations started heating the district hospital.

The Kirovohrad and Vinnitsa regions were reconnected to the grid early Thursday morning, adding to a dozen other regions that were reconnected Wednesday night, according to Kirillo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office.

In the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, electricity has been restored to up to 50% of consumers, said Governor Valentyn Reznichenko, but said “the energy situation is complex.”

As Russia continues to attack Ukraine’s power grid, Ukrainian officials have begun opening up what they call “points of invincibility.” This is a heated and powered space with electricity for people to eat hot meals, charge their devices, and connect to the internet.

A total of 3,720 such spaces have been opened across the country, said Kirilo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office, on Thursday morning.

Various venues have been converted to such points, including government buildings, schools, kindergartens and emergency services offices, according to the initiative’s website.

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