Klitschko: Kyiv has only half the electricity it needs

Kiev has only about half of the electricity it needs due to the most serious energy crisis since the beginning of the war following Russian attacks on critical infrastructure, Vitali Klitschko, mayor of the Ukrainian capital, told Reuters on Friday.

“For the first time in the history of our city, during such severe frosts, most of the city was left without heating and is struggling with huge electricity shortages,” Klitschko said in an interview in his office in central Kiev.

“Kyiv, one of the largest cities in Eastern Europe, needs 1,700 megawatts of electricity to provide power to its 3.6 million inhabitants,” noted the mayor of the Ukrainian capital.

Klitschko assessed that the current energy crisis is the most difficult challenge that Kiev has faced during almost four years of the full-scale Russian invasion.

The mayor added that Ukraine's international partners quickly delivered additional generators and renovation crews are working around the clock to restore heating after last week's Russian attack cut off supplies to six thousand residential buildings. He said that about 100 buildings still have no heating.

Over the past week, due to intense shelling of Kyiv's power system facilities, thousands of households were left without electricity for several hours a day, and some residents reported being without electricity for approximately 14-16 hours a day. This was accompanied by interruptions in heat supplies when the air temperature in the capital of Ukraine is minus 10-12 degrees C.

This week, Ukrainian authorities declared a state of emergency in the energy sector as the sector's infrastructure was destroyed by Russian attacks, severe frosts and accumulated war damage. (PAP)

ira/ap/