Ukrainian authorities on Saturday urged the population to “hold on” amid the power outages that are now dominating their daily lives after Russian strikes in recent weeks have severely damaged the national power grid.
“From Monday I will request that Oblenergo (an operator) review the timetables for the region. There will most likely be four-hour disruptions,” Governor of Mykolaiv region (South) Vitaliï Kim said on Telegram.
He described an “increasing consumption” of electricity, which must require longer interruptions in order to relieve the regional power grid.
“We have to persevere,” he told the residents of his region.
Russia has massively bombed Ukrainian power plants since October, causing severe damage and causing power outages that affect millions of Ukrainians who are plunged into darkness and cold every day.
On military soil, fighting in the east of the country is “hard” because “the Russians have had time to prepare” for the attacks in Kyiv, Lugansk region governor Serguiï Gaïdaï told Ukrainian television.
“The Ukrainian forces are slowly pushing through the Russian (defenses) towards Svatové-Kreminna,” he noted, without giving further details.
According to a morning report by the Ukrainian army, the situation near Bakhmout in the Donetsk region, which the Russians have been unsuccessfully trying to capture since the summer, is “difficult”.
The battle for this city took on all the more symbolic importance for Russian officials as its capture was to come after a series of humiliating defeats with retreats from Kharkiv (northeast) in September and Kherson (south) in November.
Kiev troops are encountering the same “difficulties” in the Kherson region (south), from which the Russian army partially withdrew in November in order to consolidate its positions.
“The Russians bombed Kherson (and) damaged the power grids,” the report, released Saturday morning, said.