Ukraine announces ‘emergency power cuts’

KYIV (AFP) — Ukraine’s energy operator DTEK on Sunday announced “emergency power cuts” in the Kyiv region and two others in the east after authorities revealed Russia had launched a “massive” aerial attack on the energy grid.

“Emergency power cuts in Kyiv, in the Kyiv region, in the Donetsk region, in the Dnipropetrovsk region,” DTEK wrote on social media platform Telegram.

Earlier, Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Telegram that “a massive attack on our energy system is ongoing” and that Russian forces were “attacking electricity generation and transmission facilities throughout Ukraine.”

Agence France-Presse journalists heard explosions in the early morning in Kyiv and close to Sloviansk in the Donetsk region.

Russia’s relentless aerial bombardment with missiles and drones has destroyed half of Ukraine’s energy production capacity, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

Kyiv has implored its Western allies for help in rebuilding its energy grid — a hugely expensive undertaking — and to supply its forces with more aerial defense weapons.

With the harsh Ukrainian winter fast approaching, the country is already suffering from major energy shortfalls.

Meanwhile, Poland said it had scrambled fighter jets and mobilized all available forces on Sunday.

“Due to a massive attack by Russia, which is carrying out strikes using cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and drones against sites located, among other places, in western Ukraine, operations by Polish and allied aircraft have begun,” Poland’s Operational Command posted on social media platform X.

These measures were “aimed at insuring security in the areas adjacent to the threatened zones.”

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said one person was wounded by falling debris from a drone on a residential building.

Local authorities and Ukrainian media reported numerous explosions throughout the country including in Zaporizhzhia, Odessa and Mykolaiv in the south and Chernigiv in the north.