CNN
–
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia “Energy Terror“After Moscow’s repeated attacks on key infrastructure that cut power to hundreds of thousands of people.
The city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said that about 450,000 homes across Kyiv were without electricity on Friday as power outages continued across the country. “It’s one and a half times more than in recent days,” Klitschko said via Telegram.
Across the country, about 4.5 million consumers were temporarily disconnected from the power source Thursday under emergency and stabilization schedules, according to Zelensky.
Interruptions following dire warnings about A cold and difficult winter awaits us For those in the country, after weeks of Russian air strikes and missile attacks on Ukraine’s power grid.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has tried to allay these fears and said on Friday that Moscow “will continue to treat the Ukrainian people with respect and warmth. That is how it was and what it is, despite today’s tragic confrontation.”
“A clash with the neo-Nazis was inevitable, and it reached the point where the situation became deadly for Russia,” Putin added.
But this week alone, attacks on critical infrastructure in the Kyiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhya regions have intermittently deprived millions of electricity and water.
The fact that Russia has resorted to terrorism against the energy sector indicates the weakness of the enemy. “They cannot defeat Ukraine on the battlefield, and therefore they are trying to destroy our people in this way,” Zelensky said during his evening address.
Repeated Russian air attacks have dragged cities in central and western Ukraine to the fore in the war, leaving residents in the capital struggling to keep businesses running, along with water and other resources.
Ukraine’s national power supply company, Ukrenergo, said earlier this week that many regions will face extended power outages as it tries to repair damage from the recent strikes.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Birbock said Thursday, before a meeting of the group’s foreign ministers in the western German city of Münster, that the G7 will coordinate its support for Ukraine as winter approaches the strife-torn country.
“We will not allow the brutality of war to lead to the death of so many old people, children, teenagers and families from starvation or cold during the coming winter months because of the Russian president’s brutal tactics,” Barbock said. reporters.
The Ukrainian military said that at the same time, Russian forces intensified their air attacks near the eastern front lines, using Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS), especially in the Donetsk region.
The Army General Staff said that 80 such attacks were recorded on Wednesday, while on Thursday the enemy carried out 4 missiles and 28 air strikes and fired more than 45 times MLRS missiles.
Valery Zalogny, Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said that during a conversation on Thursday with General Christopher Cavoli, the supreme commander of NATO forces in Europe, he noted that “the enemy tripled the intensity of hostilities in certain areas of the front – up to 80 attacks.” daily”.
Russian forces and their “collaborators” also began conducting a population census in the city of Innerhodar, adjacent to the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, according to Ukrainian officials.
They do it in their usual way, by force because one cannot refuse to participate in the ‘census,’ said Dmytro Orlov, the displaced mayor of Enerhodar.
For the second day now, cops with collaborators with the so-called police are making door-to-door rounds and intercepting people in the yards. This was said by local residents who had to take part in the “census,” Orlov claimed.
“In many cases the census ends up searching and browsing mobile apps. Please be aware!” He said. The city’s pre-war population was about 50,000. It has been under Russian occupation since early March.
The state company that operates the nuclear plant, Energoatom, said Thursday that further Russian bombing about 50 kilometers from the plant disrupted two high-voltage transmission lines, and that the power plant had switched to “full blackout mode. All 20 diesel generators have started working.” . The plant is run by Ukrainian technicians but is controlled by the Russian state company Rosatom.
To the south, videos on social media and local Telegram channels indicated explosions near an airport north of Kherson, in an area occupied by Russian forces.
The video showed a large plume of black smoke rising from the Chornobayevka region.
Ukrainian forces and Russian-appointed officials in the region have not officially commented on the video.
On the eastern bank of the Dnipro River to the north, unofficial Telegram channels say that Russian troops are forcing the local population to leave the village of Velyka Lepetykha. Russia-backed authorities have already announced the evacuation of civilians from a 15-kilometre-long area along the river as they establish new defenses in the area.
Those same channels say that a mandatory evacuation is also underway in the downstream village of Hornostayevka, while new explosions have been heard in the town of Nova Kakhovka, also on the east bank and near a dam and a hydroelectric power station on the river.
Humanitarian agencies have said that such a strategy could constitute Human rights violations.
. “Proud zombie lover. Evil pop culture buff. Amateur thinker. Total food practitioner. Tv evangelist.”