New Delhi: The Ukrainian authorities have warned the people of Kyiv about the possibility of longer power cuts, lasting more than four hours due to Russia’s missile attack on energy infrastructure that happened earlier this month, BBC reported.
The rolling blackouts are hitting Kyiv and central regions of Ukraine, including the city of Dnipro. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said about four million people were affected but "shelling will not break us". In October, Russia launched dozens of missiles and Iranian-made drones.
The air attacks are pounding Ukraine's energy infrastructure. Zelensky said that about a third of the country's electric power stations have been destroyed. The Kyiv region has lost 30% of its power capacity, the private energy company DTEK says, meaning "unprecedented" power cuts will be necessary, as reported by BBC.
"Unfortunately the scale of restrictions is significant, much larger than it was before," BBC quoted DTEK director Dmytro Sakharuk as saying.
The power cuts have resulted in curbs on street lights and electric-powered public transport, besides the discomfort in people's homes. The European Union and other international allies of Kyiv have condemned the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure. Ukraine sees these attacks as war crimes.
Ukraine's second city Kharkiv which was also damaged heavily by Russian shelling is also facing long power cuts, along with the central cities of Zhytomyr, Poltava and Chernihiv. Russia had reportedly intensified its attacks on infrastructure across Ukraine since October 10, damaging the country's power stations in an apparent response to an attack on the Crimea bridge.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had termed the explosion on the Crimean bridge as a "terrorist attack" that was aimed at destroying the country's critical civilian infrastructure. Putin blamed Ukrainian special services for the attack on the key bridge that connects Crimea with mainland Russia.
Putin called that blast a Ukrainian "act of terrorism". The bridge is a symbol of his campaign to incorporate large swathes of Ukraine into Russia.
A power station employee called Pavlo, quoted by AFP news agency, said "we are confronted by such damage for the first time". The unnamed plant had twice been targeted by missiles and then by an Iranian-made "kamikaze" drone. He said repairs had been underway for more than two weeks, but "there are difficulties in that the equipment that has been damaged is unique - it's hard to find the same parts".
(With BBC Inputs)