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KYIV – Ukraine has urged residents to drastically restrict their electricity consumption starting today to cope with the destruction of power stations by the Russian army as winter approaches.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after a meeting with energy companies that they were preparing “for all possible scenarios with a view to winter”, as Kyiv accused Moscow of orchestrating a “mass deportation” of civilians from the occupied region of Kherson.
Russian President Vladimir Putin imposed martial law yesterday in four areas recently annexed by the Kremlin, with his forces raining down munitions across Ukraine, including on Kyiv and the country’s west, which had previously been spared the brunt of the onslaught.
In an evening address, Zelenskyy warned that “Russian terror will be directed at energy facilities”, and urged the country to conserve electricity starting at 7am (0400 GMT) today.
He added that the government was “working on the creation of mobile power supply points for critical infrastructure in cities and villages”.
Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko asked residents of the capital not to turn on major electrical appliances, saying “even a small saving and reduction of electricity consumption in each residence will help to stabilise the national energy system’s operation”.
Ukraine said it had downed “several Russian rockets” over Kyiv in the third consecutive day of attacks on the capital, with Zelenskyy saying 10 Iranian-made drones aimed at the city had also been destroyed yesterday.
A Ukrainian representative called the push by Russia to evacuate Kherson the “equivalent of deportation”. The city has been in Moscow’s hands since the earliest days of the invasion.
Putin’s “aim is to create a kind of panic in Kherson and an image (to fuel) propaganda”, Sergiy Khlan said, adding that Ukrainian forces were still pushing their counter-offensive southward.
He said the Russians were using the evacuations as a pretext to justify “their withdrawal from Kherson and more generally from the right bank” of the Dnieper River.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, criticised Moscow’s move as criminal.
“Putin’s martial law in the annexed regions of Ukraine is preparation for the mass deportation of the Ukrainian population to depressed areas of Russia in order to change the ethnic composition of the occupied territory,” Danilov said.
Pro-Russian officials in the town of Oleshky across the Dnieper said residents from Kherson city were already arriving.
Russia’s Rossiya 24 TV showed images of people waiting to board ferries, unable to use bridges damaged by Ukraine.
Vladimir Saldo, the Kherson region’s Moscow-installed head, told Russian state television that the city’s administration would relocate east of the Dnieper. – AFP, October 20, 2022