Oct. 31 (UPI) — Workers in the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv were forced to take shelter as Russian forces conducted missile strikes on Ukrainian cities Monday.
“Like millions of Ukrainians, our @USEmbassyKyiv team is once again taking shelter as Russia continues its callous and barbaric missile strikes on the people of Ukraine in an effort to leave the country cold and dark as we approach winter,” U.S. Ambassador Bridget Brink said in a statement.
Russia’s campaign against Ukraine‘s power infrastructure ahead of the winter season continued on Monday as Moscow showered the country with more than 50 missile attacks targeting facilities that caused widespread power outages, including the capital Kyiv.
The series of attacks, which hit facilities in Kyiv along with the central Vinnytsia region, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia in the southeast, and Lviv to the west, appeared to focus on civilian infrastructure.
Kyiv has continued to charge that Russia is illegally targeting its power infrastructure targets which have no military value, while Moscow has continued to deny it has been centering its war on harming Ukrainian civilians.
Vitaliy Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, said in a statement that 40% of the city’s residents remained without water and 270,000 apartments were still without electricity after power was restored to the Troeshchyna and Podol neighborhoods.
Another attack hit facilities in the country’s second-largest city of Kharkiv. Missiles hit a facility at the Dnipro hydroelectric power plant in Zaporizhzhia.
Oleksiy Kuleba, governor of Kyiv, urged residents there to use electricity sparingly while confirming that private buildings have been damaged.
“Part of the Kyiv region remains without electricity,” Kuleba said in a statement.
“Energy workers are already working on eliminating the consequences. Emergency power cuts are also introduced in the region. Prepare for long-term power outages. There is currently one victim, we are clarifying the information.”
He added that no evacuations are planned for the Kyiv region “in the near future.”
Dmytro Sakharuk, executive director of the Ukrainian energy company DTEK, said that the company is running low on supplies to fix power infrastructure damaged by Russian shelling, according to a statement from the company.
“We have already used up the stockpiles of equipment which we had in our depots after the first two waves of attacks since Oct. 10,” Sakharuk said.
Dnipropetrovsk’s regional military administration head Valentyn Reznichenko confirmed Russian facility strikes attacks on Monday.
“The Russians targeted energy infrastructure facilities in Dnipro and Pavlohrad,” he said, according to CNBC. “Serious destruction is recorded. All services are working on site.”
Lviv, which has seen little fighting compared to other parts of the country since Russia’s invasion in February, saw its governor issue a rolling electrical cuts program because of the attack. Lviv had been a hub for Ukrainians fleeing the country since the start of the war.
“Starting today, an hourly electricity blackout schedule will be introduced in Lviv oblast and throughout Ukraine,” Gov. Maksym Kozytskyi said. “Lvivblenergo specialists divided consumers of the region into 3 groups.
“Also, due to the attacks on critical infrastructure objects, which the terrorist state resorted to today, emergency power cuts are being introduced in Ukraine.”
