“A total of 2,019 localities in 16 regions are without electricity,” Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said. In the southern city of Odessa, regularly targeted by Russian attacks, authorities said they had provided assistance to 1,624 people trapped by snow.
More than 2,000 localities were plunged into darkness by a violent snowstorm which swept across Ukraine, the country’s authorities said on Monday, whose electricity system is already under pressure from Russian bombing. Ukraine fears a new campaign of massive Russian strikes targeting its essential infrastructure this winter, as in 2022 when these attacks plunged millions of people into cold and darkness.
“Extremely difficult weather conditions”
“A total of 2,019 localities in 16 regions are without electricity,” Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said. The storm created chaos on the roads, 1,370 trucks were forced to “temporarily stop” and 840 vehicles had to be towed, he added. In the southern city of Odessa, regularly targeted by Russian attacks, authorities said they had provided assistance to 1,624 people trapped by snow.
Temperatures fell below zero degrees and strong gusts of wind were recorded, according to the same source. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had already spoken of “extremely difficult weather conditions” on Sunday, announcing that several hundred localities were without power. The national operator Ukrenergo reported last week a “difficult” situation for the electricity network due to the increase in consumption linked to the fall in temperatures, pushing it to urgently import electricity from three countries neighbors.