Regions at war, plunged into darkness and cold. “Additional restrictions” on electricity have been introduced in Kyiv and several regions of Ukraine, national operator Ukrenergo announced on Saturday, while power interruptions had already been in place for several days to limit consumption by civilians in electricity.
“Today, Ukrenergo’s control center was forced to introduce additional restrictions in the form of emergency shutdowns for all categories of consumers” in several regions, including Kyiv, Ukrenergo said in a statement.
Ukraine’s electricity system has been heavily affected by multiple Russian strikes in recent weeks, raising fears of a winter without electricity and water for many civilians.
Russia wants to ‘freeze’ the Ukrainian population
On Friday, the United States accused Russia of wanting to “freeze” the Ukrainian population this winter because it could not prevail on the battlefield. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Chmygal nevertheless wanted to be reassuring: “We are preparing for all scenarios. We store power generation equipment for emergencies,” he explained.
“Today almost half of the buildings in the whole of Ukraine have heating. These are schools, kindergartens, hospitals, apartment buildings (…) In kyiv, 78% of buildings are currently heated,” he said.
“There are enough reserves in underground gas deposits. 14.5 billion m3 of gas have been accumulated. Given the expected foreign deliveries, these volumes will be sufficient to get through the season “where heating is necessary, still according to the head of government.
“We have already received 700 generators from (foreign) donors. 900 others will soon be delivered by them,” said the Prime Minister. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) will step up its actions in Ukraine with a view to enabling farmers to continue to produce despite the conflict.