Moscow: President Vladimir Putin vowed to keep battering Ukraine’s energy grid despite an outcry against the systematic attacks that have plunged millions into the cold and dark as winter sets in.
He instead blamed Ukraine for initiating a trend of attacking civilian infrastructure, pointing to a blast on a key bridge between the Russian mainland and the annexed Crimean peninsula that he recently visited.
“There’s a lot of noise about our strikes on the energy infrastructure of a neighbouring country. This will not interfere with our combat missions,” Putin said at a military awards ceremony in the Kremlin.
Weeks of Russian missile barrages across Ukraine have crippled key infrastructure at a critical time, as temperatures drop ahead of long winter months that already have brought suffering to Ukrainians lacking water, heating and gas.
He presented the strikes as a response to the explosion in October on the Kerch bridge and also accused Kyiv of blowing up power lines from the Kursk nuclear power plant and for not supplying water to Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
“Yes, we do that,” Putin said of the strikes on the Ukraine grid. “But who started it?”
Ukrainian energy operator Ukrenergo said that it was still reeling from the latest bout of strikes that came this week and was suffering a “significant deficit”.
“The situation is complicated by weather conditions,” it added, saying snow, frost and wind were putting pressure on infrastructure.
The Kremlin hit out at Time magazine’s decision a day earlier to name Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky as “Person of the Year”, saying it reflected “Russophobic” trends in Western countries.
The Politico news website also named Zelensky as the “Most Influential” person in Europe. And during a ceremony in Rome Thursday, Pope Francis was briefly reduced to tears as he prayed for the people of Ukraine. He had to pause for a moment, his body shaking with emotion, before he could finish his prayer. The crowd around him broke into applause.
One of Turkey’s most influential marine biologists, Bayram Ozturk, pleaded for the creation of an “ecological corridor” to save dolphins and other sea creatures from destruction during the conflict.
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