Major Ukrainian city suffers blackout
Residents in Ukraine’s Black Sea port city of Odessa were left without power on Saturday. Ukrainian officials said the blackout was caused by Russian strikes.
“Due to the scale of the destruction of energy infrastructure, electricity supply has been cut to all consumers in Odessa, except for critical sites,” energy operator DTEK wrote on Facebook, adding that there were outages in other cities of the Odessa region.
Mayor Gennady Trukhanov described the situation in the city of over a million people as “complicated, but manageable.” He said heating plants and water pumping stations continue to function, while hospital and maternity wards still have power. The mayor added that all of Odessa’s ‘invincibility centers,’ where residents can find a warm shelter, remain open.
Kirill Timoshenko, the deputy head of the presidential office, warned that, although Odessa officials are “working around the clock,” it will take “longer than usual” to fully restore power.
The Russian Defense Ministry has not reported strikes on Odessa in its latest daily briefing.
President Vladimir Putin reiterated on Thursday that Moscow has been hitting Ukrainian energy infrastructure in response to “attacks” on Russian soil. The country’s military started targeting key elements of the Ukrainian power grid after a truck bombing damaged a strategic bridge in Crimea in October. Moscow blamed the plot on Ukrainian military intelligence.
The defense ministry said the strikes were aimed at stopping Ukraine from transporting troops and Western-supplied weapons to the front line.
