Nearly four million people are affected by power cuts following recent Russian strikes on energy infrastructure in Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday.
"In many cities and districts of our country, power cuts have been introduced to stabilise the situation,” Zelensky said in his daily address. “Almost four million Ukrainians are currently facing these restrictions.”
Affected areas include the capital city, "Kyiv, and its region,” as well as the provinces of Jitomyr (centre-west), Poltava, Cherkassy and Kirovograd (centre), Rivne (west), Kharkiv (east) and Cherniguiv and Soumy (north), the Ukrainian president said.
Earlier in the day, the Ukrainian private operator DTEK had announced “unprecedented” power cuts for “the next few days” in the capital and its region, due to major damage inflicted on the Ukrainian energy system by Russian strikes.
For more than two weeks, Russia has been increasing its strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, resulting in the destruction of at least one-third of its energy capacity just before winter.
As a result, power cuts of a few hours have been imposed daily in many regions to avoid blackouts.
