Russian Attacks Dissolved Electricity Facilities Ahead Of Winter, Ukraine Was Threatened With Power Outages Until March

The impact of the Russian attack ahead of the Winter in Ukraine. (Wikimedia Commons/State Emergency Service of Ukraine)

JAKARTA - Ukrainians are preparing to face winter with little or no electricity in some areas, including the capital, where temperatures have dropped below freezing, as a relentless Russian attack paralyzed half of the country's energy capacity.

President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed to the public to save electricity, especially in the worst-affected areas such as Kyiv,engestia in the southwest, Sumy in the north and Odesa in the Black Sea.

Russia is known to have carried out successive missile attacks in response to its troops' setbacks on the battlefield, with President Zelensky saying half of the country's electric capacity had been destroyed by Russian rockets.

"The systematic damage to our energy system due to the Russian terrorist attack is enormous, so all of our people and businesses must limit and redistribute their consumption throughout the day," President Zelensky said in his evening video address.

"Try to limit your personal electricity consumption," President Zelensky urged.

Millions of Ukrainians will most likely live with blackouts, at least until the end of March, the chief major energy provider said on Monday.

Sergey Kovalenko, head of YASNO, who provided energy for Kyiv, said workers rushed to complete the fix before winter arrived.

"Prepare warm clothes, blankets, think about options that will help you wait for the old outage," explained Kovalenko.

"It's better to do it now than to be miserable."

Meanwhile, residents in the recently released southern city of Kherson, where Kyiv said Russian forces destroyed critical infrastructure before leaving earlier this month, could apply for a transfer to an area where security and warming issues were not too severe.

In Telegram's message to Kherson residents, especially parents, women with children and those who are sick or disabled, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk uploaded a number of ways citizens can express interest in leaving.

"You can be evacuated during the winter period to safer areas of the country," he wrote citing issues of security and infrastructure.

Separately, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia's blackouts and attacks on energy infrastructure were a consequence of Kyiv's unwilling negotiations, TASS news agency reported last weekend.

On Monday evening, Ukrainian President Mykhailo Podolyak's adviser said Russia bombarded Kherson from across the Dnipro River after its troops fled.

"There is no military logic: they just want to take revenge on the locals," he tweeted.

While Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians, in what it calls a "special military operation" to rid Ukraine of nationalists, of protecting Russian-speaking communities.