Heating, power restored in Kyiv

GBNEWS24DESK//

Heating has been fully restored to Kyiv after the latest Russian bombardment that targeted water and power infrastructure, the capital’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko said yesterday.

“The city is restoring all services after the latest shelling,” Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app. “In particular, the capital’s heat supply system was fully restored. All sources of heat supply work normally.”

Ukrainian officials said Russia fired more than 70 missiles on Friday in one of its heaviest barrages since the Kremlin’s February 24 invasion, forcing emergency blackouts nationwide and cutting access to heat and water.

Temperatures in Kyiv and many places across Ukraine were below freezing yesterday morning, with forecasts expecting them to dip to minus 6 degrees Celsius in the capital by the evening.

Kyiv is by far the largest city in Ukraine with an estimated population of about 3 million, with up to two million more in the Kyiv region. As of late Saturday, a third of the city remained without power.

Sergei Kovalenko, chief executive of YASNO, which provides electricity for Kyiv said late on Saturday that access to power has been increasing with each hour.

“The situation remains difficult and critical,” Kovalenko said on his Facebook account.

Ukraine has managed to restore power to almost 6 million people in the last 24 hours, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address.

“Repair work continues without a break after terrorist attack. … Of course, there is still a lot of work to do to stabilize the system,” he said.

“There are problems with the heat supplies. There are big problems with water supplies,” Zelensky added, saying Kyiv as well as Vinnytsia and Lviv further to the west were experiencing the most difficulty.

Meanwhile, one person was killed and four people were wounded by shelling in the southern Russian region of Belgorod near the border with Ukraine yesterday, the governor of the region said.

“Our air defence system was activated over Belgorod and the Belgorod region,” Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

“Four people are known to have been injured. Medical teams are taking them to hospital,” he said.

A poultry plant has been damaged and windows in several residential buildings and cars have been hit, he added. Three witnesses told Reuters that loud blasts were heard in the city yesterday.