Heating centres are being deployed in the Kyiv districts suffering the most from the lack of electricity, as the Ukrainian capital faces what officials describe as an extremely difficult situation with the power supply. The deployment was announced by Vitalii Klitschko, the Mayor of Kyiv.
At these centres, residents will be able to warm up, charge their phones and other devices, and drink hot tea, Klitschko said, presenting the facilities as points of support for people in the neighbourhoods most affected by the outages.
According to Klitschko, Russian attacks have damaged both electricity generation and transmission across the country. Facilities belonging to the Kyiv regional energy hub have also been damaged as a result of recent strikes, and this led Ukraine's national energy company, Ukrenergo, to implement emergency power outages.
The emergency situation has not been confined to electricity. It has also caused interruptions in the water supply and disrupted the operation of electric public transport in the capital, meaning the effects of the strikes are being felt across several essential services at once.
Efforts to repair the damage are under way on multiple fronts. Power engineers are working to restore electricity supplies to the affected areas, while engineers from Kyivvodokanal, the capital's water utility, are working to restore the water supply.
The scale of the assault was underlined by Ukrenergo, which reported that the latest Russian attack was one of the biggest attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure. According to the company, over the past 24 hours alone, Russian forces have deliberately attacked energy facilities more than 20 times.
In Kyiv itself, the Russian attacks have left major water supply facilities without power, which in turn caused the interruptions in the city's water supply.
The consequences extend beyond the capital. A special emergency power outage schedule has been implemented in Sumy and Poltava oblasts, and there is no information available regarding how long the outages there might last.
Officials say the damage to the facilities of the Kyiv regional energy hub caused by the Russian attacks has led to emergency power outages both in the city of Kyiv and across Kyiv Oblast, the wider region surrounding the capital.
