Ukraine scrambles to restore power, water after Russian attacks

Ukraine has managed to restore power to almost six million people in the last 24 hours after a series of Russian missiles on Friday damaged critical energy infrastructure across the country, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

“Repair work continues without a break after yesterday’s terrorist attack,” Zelenskyy said. “Of course, there is still a lot of work to do to stabilise the system.”

“There are problems with the heat supplies. There are big problems with water supplies,” he added, saying the capital Kyiv, as well as the cities Vinnytsia and Lviv further to the west, were experiencing the most difficulty.

Ukrainian officials said Moscow fired several dozens of missiles on Friday in one of its heaviest barrages since the February 24 invasion, forcing emergency blackouts nationwide.

Russia has rained missiles on the country’s energy infrastructure almost weekly since early October, after several battlefield defeats, but Friday’s attack seemed to inflict more damage than many others, with snow and ice now widespread.

Ukrainian authorities scrambled to repair and restore vital services a day after the attacks, as residents navigated Kyiv gripped by fog and girded for a holiday season marked by uncertainty.

In Kyiv, heating was restored to three-quarters of the city and electricity returned to two-thirds, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

“But schedules of emergency outages are being implemented,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “Because the deficit of electricity is significant.”

Klitschko also said the city’s metro system was back in service and that all residents had been reconnected to the water supply.

Russia’s defence ministry claimed its “high-precision” weapons hit parts of Ukraine’s military-industrial complex as well as energy and military administrative facilities.

“As a result of the strike, the transportation of weapons and ammunition of foreign production has been thwarted,” it said on Saturday, adding that Ukraine’s plants producing weapons, military equipment and ammunition had been disabled.