Russian airstrikes have knocked out power to more than a million Ukrainians

By Max Hunder

Jan 24 (Reuters) – Russia launched another major attack on Ukraine’s energy system, with explosions rocking Kiev overnight and into Saturday morning, leaving 1.2 million properties nationwide without power during a sub-zero winter.

Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said that more than 3,200 buildings in the capital were heated to 6,000 from evening to morning. Nighttime temperatures hovered around -10 °C (14 F).

He said that more than 160 emergency teams have been mobilized in the capital to restore Tatopani. Crews were also at work in other affected areas, mainly in western and southern Ukraine.

Energy Minister Denis Schmyahl, writing in a telegram after a daily meeting of energy officials, said an additional 400,000 households were still without electricity in the Chernihiv region north of the capital.

“For Shakti, constant enemy attacks unfortunately prevent the situation from stabilizing,” he wrote.

Many residents’ apartments were freezing cold from interruptions in Kiev’s centralized heat distribution system after an earlier attack.

Trilateral, US-brokered talks between Russia and Ukraine continued into a second day in the United Arab Emirates after Moscow carried out the attacks, later adjourning with no sign of a deal. Further talks were to take place next weekend.

Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko said that Russia has targeted the capital and four regions in the north and east of the country.

“We are quickly restoring the damaged power generation facilities, increasing imports as much as possible and bringing in new alternative capacity,” she said.

Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said one person was killed and four were injured in the capital city, three of whom required hospitalization, while more than 30 people, including a child, were injured in Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv.

Klitschko visited Kyiv’s worst-affected district, the northeastern suburb of Troyeshchyna, where 600 buildings were without electricity, water and heat.

He said vulnerable residents are being given hot meals and medicine, and the city is rolling out additional, heated shelters that will operate around the clock in the area.

Kiev recently lifted its wartime military curfew to allow people in cold apartments to move into heated tents or public buildings at night.

Nine months after Russia launched its full-scale offensive, which has devastated Ukraine’s power grid since November 2022, it is carrying out its biggest bombing campaign against energy facilities this winter. People across Ukraine have only a few hours of electricity a day, some without heat or water.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia dropped 375 drones and 21 missiles in its overnight attack, including two rarely deployed Tsirkon ballistic missiles.

Kiev’s sky lit up with a regular orange glow as air defenses struck missiles and drones that landed on the capital. Loud booms echoed around the city’s tallest buildings.

Timur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said at least four districts were attacked. A medical facility was also among the damaged buildings.

Before Saturday, Kiev had endured two mass attacks overnight since New Year’s that knocked out electricity and heating in hundreds of residential buildings.

Emergency workers were still busy restoring services to residents displaced by those attacks, and Klitschko said many of the buildings that burned on Saturday had just been restored.

In Kharkiv, 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Russian border and very close to eastern fighting, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said 25 drones had struck several districts.

Writing in Telegram, Terekhov said the drone had hit two medical facilities, including a dormitory for displaced people and a maternity hospital.

(Reporting by Max Hunder and Ron Popeski; Editing by Chris Rees, Tom Hogue, Mark Heinrich and David Gregorio)