Icy Kyiv grapples with blackouts amid waves of Russian air attacks

Kyiv — Snow fell in freezing Kyiv on Sunday as millions of people in and around the Ukrainian capital struggled with disruption of electricity supply and central heating caused by waves of Russian air strikes. 

But Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky remains defiant. “We cannot be broken,” he said at the weekend. 

“Once they wanted to destroy us with hunger, now with darkness and cold,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram, accusing the Kremlin of reviving the “genocidal” tactics of Josef Stalin as Kyiv commemorated a Soviet-era famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in the winter of 1932-1933. 

Cold weather is pushing up energy needs of consumers as workers race to fix wrecked power facilities, said grid operator Ukrenergo.  Electricity producers still cannot resume full power supply after Russia's missile attacks on Wednesday and must conserve energy with blackouts, it said.

“The consumption restriction regime is still in place due to a capacity deficit, which currently stands at around 20%,” Ukrenergo said on Telegram.

Moscow has targeted vital infrastructure in recent weeks through waves of air strikes that sparked widespread power outages and killed civilians. Fresh strikes last Wednesday caused the worst damage so far in the nine-month conflict, leaving millions of people with no light, water or heat as temperatures fell below 0°C.

David Arakhamiya, head of Zelensky’s party, predicted Russia would carry out new infrastructure attacks this coming week and said the week could be “really difficult”.

Zelensky said on Saturday night that electricity use was restricted in 14 of Ukraine’s 27 regions. The restrictions affect more than 100,000 customers in each of the regions, he said. Affected regions included the capital Kyiv and the surrounding area.

“If consumption increases in the evening, the number of outages may increase,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address, reiterating an appeal to citizens to save power.

“This once again shows how important it is now to save power and consume it rationally.”

Weather forecasters expected more snow in Kyiv, a city that had 2.8-million residents before the war, until midweek while temperatures are forecast to stay below freezing.

Four hours of power

Sergey Kovalenko, COO of Yasno, which provides energy to Kyiv, said on Saturday evening the situation in the city improved but remained “quite difficult”.

Residents should have at least four hours of power a day. “If you haven’t had at least four hours of electricity in the past day, write to DTEK Kyiv Electric Networks, colleagues will help you figure out what the problem is,” Kovalenko wrote on his Facebook page.

Yasno is the retail branch of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy provider.

Ukrenergo said blackouts will continue and urged sparing use of power. “We would like to remind you that now every Ukrainian whose home has had electricity restored can help restore it to others faster, simply by consuming electricity sparingly,” it said in a statement on Saturday.

Russia has been saying since it invaded Ukraine on February 24 that it does not target civilians. The Kremlin said on Thursday that Kyiv could “end the suffering” of its population by meeting Russia’s demands to resolve the conflict.

Reuters