It will be a cold and dark winter for many Ukrainians. The energy infrastructure around the Ukrainian city of Kherson was “virtually destroyed” during the withdrawal of the Russian army, which has been the target of attacks. Grid operator Ukrenergo announced this on Friday.
“On Monday the enemy struck. It again concerned Ukrenergo installations, mainly in the south of Ukraine, and power plants were also damaged,” said the head of the network operator.
According to Ukrenergo, Ukrainian air defenses prevented further damage. The network operator spoke of “more than a thousand missiles and drones” fired by Russia since October 10, the date of a first Russian attack on a Ukrainian energy supply. The situation is most precarious in Odessa and the region around Kherson, where the electricity grid is “virtually destroyed,” according to Ukrenergo.
Dark and cold
The repair works in the regions of Kharkiv in the northeast and Donetsk in the east “are also complex”, it sounds. The head of the grid operator says that “almost all hydropower plants are damaged and have limited capacity to produce electricity” because of the Russian attacks, which have left millions of Ukrainians in the dark and cold. Importing electricity from other countries in Europe is technically possible, but it is much more expensive, it sounds.
On Thursday, Russian President Putin assured that his army will continue to focus on energy infrastructure in Ukraine. The president sees this as a retaliatory action for the attacks that Kiev, according to him, carried out on the Crimean bridge. It was partially destroyed by a truck bomb in early October.
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