People charge their devices from a power generator at a heating point, organized by state emergency service, during a power cut in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday. Photo by Oleg Petrasyuk/EPA-EFE
Nov. 25 (UPI) -- Half of the homes in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv remained without electricity on Friday in the face of a continued Russian military campaign to damage the country's civilian infrastructure.
Ukrainian officials have argued the weeks-long tactic is meant to deny civilians their ways to keep warm as winter approaches. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the attacks "energy terror" while Moscow this week continued to deny it is purposely attacking civilian targets.
Officials said the power outages have left hospital surgeons to operate on patients via flashlights from nurses while others carried water to upstairs apartments that no longer had operating faucets.
"The situation is difficult throughout the country," Herman Galushchenko, Ukraine's energy minister, said. He said engineers are now working to "unify the energy system" to allow power to be directed to critical infrastructure facilities like hospitals.
Zaporizhzhia regional Gov. Oleksandr Starukh said a Russian missile hit a hospital in the city overnight, but no one was hurt. The latest attacks from Moscow forced Ukrainian authorities to shut down all nuclear plants under its control for a short time.
Officials reported Russian attacks overnight into Friday morning in other parts of the country.
"Overnight, they shelled Marhanets and Nikopol with 'Grad' rockets and heavy artillery," Valentyn Reznichenko, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, said. "At least 70 Russian shells landed in towns and villages."
Ukrainian energy provider Ukrenergo said the plants were back up and running on Friday. Officials from the company said "strong winds and sub-zero temperatures" have slowed the effort to get much of the infrastructure back up and running.
"The pace of restoration [to household consumers] is slowed down by difficult weather conditions: due to strong winds, rain and sub-zero temperatures at night, ice and gusts of wind in distribution networks add to the damage caused by Russian missiles," Ukrenergo said.
"[The power has been restored to] critical infrastructure facilities in all regions: boiler houses, gas distribution stations, water utilities, sewage treatment plants."
A wounded woman is treated by emergency service personnel at the site of an explosion in Kyiv, Ukraine on October 10, 2022. At least five people have been killed and 12 wounded in Russian missile strikes on the Ukrainian capital. Photo by Vladyslav Musiienko/UPI |
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