Ukraine war: Kyiv mayor warns of winter without heat, water or electricity
The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, has warned residents they must prepare for the worst this winter if Russia keeps striking the country's energy infrastructure -- and that means possibly having no electricity, water or heat in the freezing cold winter months.
“We are doing everything to avoid this. But let’s be frank, our enemies are doing everything for the city to be without heat, without electricity, without water supply, in general, so we all die. And the future of the country and the future of each of us depends on how prepared we are for different situations," Klitschko told Ukrainian state media.
Meanwhile President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Sunday that about 4.5 million people were without electricity. He called on Ukrainians to endure the hardships, saying “we must get through this winter and be even stronger in the spring than now.”
Russia has focused on striking Ukraine's energy infrastructure over the last month, causing power shortages and rolling outages across the country. Kyiv was having hourly rotating blackouts Sunday in parts of the city and the surrounding region.
Rolling blackouts also were planned in the Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Kharkiv and Poltava regions, Ukraine’s state-owned energy operator, Ukrenergo, said.
Kyiv plans to deploy about 1,000 heating points, but it's unclear if that would be enough for a city of three million people.
As Russia intensifies its attacks on the capital, Ukrainian forces are pushing forward in the south.
Residents of Ukraine's Russian-occupied city of Kherson received warning messages on their phones urging them to evacuate as soon as possible, Ukraine's military said Sunday.
The Russians warned civilians that Ukraine's army was preparing for a massive
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