Eva Deschamps / September 12, 2022
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that Russia was responsible for the power outages in eastern Ukraine and accused Moscow of deliberately striking civilian infrastructure.
A total power cut in Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, a partial one in Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy regions, Zelensky wrote in a statement on social networks, blaming Russian terrorists.
No military facilities affected, he added. The aim is to deprive people of light and heating.
Shortly before that, local authorities reported Russian shelling of strategic infrastructure that caused power outages in large areas of eastern Ukraine, where Kiev launched a counteroffensive that broke through Russian lines.
The power cuts affect territories where millions of people lived before the war.
The governor of the northeastern region of Kharkiv, where Kiev has claimed the biggest territorial gains during its counteroffensive, said on social networks that the Russian army had hit essential infrastructure in the region and its namesake capital. According to Oleg Sinegoubov, there is no water or electricity in several settlements. The emergency services are trying to control the fires on the sites that were hit.
The governor of the central-eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, Dmytro Reznichenko, also blamed the Russians for the power cuts in his area. Several cities and towns in the Dnipropetrovsk region are without electricity. The Russians hit the energy infrastructure. They can't accept their defeat on the battlefield, he said.
His counterpart in the eastern Soumy region said that water and electricity cuts affected at least 135 towns and villages in his jurisdiction.
AFP journalists in Kramatorsk, in the eastern Donetsk region, confirmed that the blackouts were also affecting this city, one of the largest in the east still under Ukrainian control. The regional governor also reported blackouts elsewhere in his area.