Monitoring Desk
KYIV/BUCHAREST: The Russian missile strikes on Ukraine’s power grid caused rolling blackouts, and the country’s people had to endure another week of freezing temperatures and darkness. The United States will announce new assistance on Tuesday to help Ukraine restore electricity.
Since the beginning of October, Russia has been launching attacks on Ukraine’s power plants, transmission and distribution hubs, and water pumping stations. As damage mounts and winter approaches, each barrage has a greater impact than the previous, according to Reuters.
As bad as last week’s bombardment was, which left millions of people without heat, water, or electricity, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned that he anticipates new assaults.
Under the condition of anonymity, a senior State Department source informed reporters that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who arrived in Bucharest early on Tuesday, will announce fresh aid to help restore Ukraine’s power transmission capacity.
According to the official, Washington has been coordinating with US hardware and utility companies as well as with European nations to find the necessary equipment to repair Ukraine’s high-voltage transmission facilities.
Dmytro Kuleba, the foreign minister of Ukraine, stated to a group of seven foreign ministers from the Nordic and Baltic countries that his nation needed transformers and better air defences.
Attacks by Russia on infrastructure used by civilians are deemed war crimes by Kiev and its supporters. Although Moscow maintains that its goal is not to harm people, it warned last week that their suffering would continue until Ukraine acceded to its demands, which it did not specify.
As millions of people in and around the capital city of Kyiv battled to heat their homes, snow was falling and the temperature was close to freezing.
In a defiant show of festive cheer, Christmas trees will be put up without lights all around the damaged city, according to officials.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in an interview with the RBC-Ukraine news agency, “We cannot let Putin take our Christmas.”
According to the chief executive of the firm, the Ukrainian energy provider Naftogaz has approached the US Agency for International Development for assistance with increased natural gas volumes for the heating season.
Nearing the top?
Kyiv residents’ access to electricity will be reduced by 60%, according to DTEK, the largest private electricity producer in Ukraine.
The country’s main grid operator, Ukrenergo, announced on Monday that it had been forced to resume routine emergency blackouts.
Viktor and Ludmila Syabro, 68 and 61 years old, said they have been living underground since the power was cut off in April as Russian assaults tore through their hometown of Siversk in the east.
The couple wants to install a wood-burning stove so that they can survive underground during the winter without access to water or gas.
Regional Governor Yaroslav Yanushevych reported that 24% of customers in Kherson city now have electricity, including partial power in the city center after Russian forces left it earlier this month.
New phase
After several months of Russian retreats, a new phase of the conflict is beginning along the front lines in eastern Ukraine, with intense trench warfare along heavily fortified positions.
The front line is only about half as long as it was a few months ago due to Russian forces retreating in the northeast and crossing the Dnipro River in the south, making it more difficult for Ukrainian forces to locate thinly defended stretches to make another breakthrough attempt.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces reported late on Monday that Russian forces were heavily shelling Kherson, which Moscow had earlier this month abandoned, and other towns on the west bank of the Dnipro River.
According to the Ukrainian military, Russia continued to bombard areas near the towns of Kupiansk and Lyman, which Kyiv recently retook, as well as Bakhmut and Avdiivka in the Donetsk province.
In order to supply Russian forces entrenched there, a rail bridge north of the city of Melitopol, which is occupied by Russia in the south, had been damaged by Ukrainian forces.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm reports from the battlefield.
On February 24, Russia began what it refers to as its “special military operation” to demilitarise its neighbor and safeguard Russian speakers. This has been scoffed at by Ukraine and Western countries as an illegitimate pretext for invasion.
As the West struggles to meet the demand for more weapons, the Pentagon is considering a Boeing proposal to provide Ukraine with inexpensive, small precision bombs fitted onto readily available rockets, enabling Kyiv to strike far behind Russian lines.
