KYIV, December 17 (Portal) – Basic services were restored in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on Saturday following the latest spate of Russian airstrikes on critical infrastructure as residents navigated a city blanketed in fog and shrouded in uncertainty for a holiday season.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a neighborhood of Kyiv was left without heating, but the metro system was back up and all residents were reconnected to the water supply early in the morning.
Only about a third of the city remained without power, he said, but emergency outages were still being instituted to conserve power. “Because the power deficit is significant,” he wrote on the messaging app Telegram.
Ukrainian officials said Russia fired more than 70 rockets on Friday in one of its heaviest barrages since invading the Kremlin on Feb. 24, forcing emergency power outages across the country.
Ukraine has managed to restore electricity to nearly 6 million people in the past 24 hours, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address.
“The repair work continues without interruption after yesterday’s terrorist attack. … Of course there is still a lot to do to stabilize the system,” he said.
“There are problems with the heat supply. There are big problems with water supply,” added Zelenskyy, saying that further west, Kyiv, Vinnytsia and Lviv face the greatest difficulties.
Earlier this month, Kyiv Mayor Klitschko had warned of an “apocalypse” scenario for the capital if Russian airstrikes on infrastructure continued, although he also said people did not need to be evacuated just yet.
“We are fighting and doing everything we can to make sure this doesn’t happen,” he told Portal on December 7.
In a gloomy winter haze, officials Saturday reopened a popular footbridge damaged in an earlier airstrike and placed a smaller-than-usual Christmas tree in a central square.
The expansive square in front of the centuries-old St. Sophia Cathedral is traditionally anchored by a giant periwinkle at Christmas. But officials this year opted for a 12-meter-tall artificial tree adorned with energy-saving lights powered by a generator.
Orthodox Christians make up the majority of Ukraine’s 43 million people.
Klitschko said the tree was funded by donors and companies and there would be no public celebrations.
“I doubt this will be a true holiday,” said Kyiv resident Iryna Soloychuk, who arrived with her daughter to see the tree just hours after another round of air alerts rang out across the country.
“But we should understand that we are all together, that we should help each other.”
Additional reporting by Yurii Khomenko and David Ljunggren Editing by Frances Kerry
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