By Dan Peleschuk<\/p>\n
KYIV, Jan 8 (Reuters) – Ukrainian officials raced to restore power on Thursday after Russian drone attacks plunged two southeastern regions into near-total blackout overnight, strikes that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said were aimed at “breaking” his country.<\/p>\n
Zelenskiy said \u200bRussia was intent on using wintry weather as a weapon rather than allowing U.S.-led diplomacy to work towards a resolution \u200cof nearly four years of conflict.<\/p>\n
A Russian missile attack on Thursday targeted apartment buildings in Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskiy’s home town in Dnipropetrovsk region, killing one person and injuring \u200c24, including six children, the head of the local military administration, Oleksandr Vilkul, said.<\/p>\n
In a rare instance of simultaneous warnings, the Ukrainian president and the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv said a new mass Russian strike was possible.<\/p>\n
Moscow has intensified its attacks on Ukraine’s energy system as Ukrainian forces fend off Russian advances on the battlefield and Kyiv faces U.S. pressure to quickly secure a peace deal.<\/p>\n
POWER RESTORED TO NEARLY 700,000 HOUSEHOLDS<\/p>\n
Private energy \u2060provider DTEK said power had been restored to \u200cnearly 700,000 households by Thursday evening after the overnight attack.<\/p>\n
But it said 194,000 households remained without electricity, including in Kryvyi Rih.<\/p>\n
The head of the city’s military administration, Oleksandr Vilkul, said Kryvyi Rih had been subjected \u200dto one of the heaviest combined attacks of drones and missiles since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.<\/p>\n
Twenty-nine apartment buildings were damaged and more than 70,000 remained without power. The water supply was operating, though with reduced pressure.<\/p>\n
Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba had earlier said more than 1.7 million \u200bhouseholds in Ukraine faced water supply problems.<\/p>\n
In Dnipro, the region’s main town, Mayor Borys Filatov said water supply was back to normal \u200cand power and heating would soon be fully restored.<\/p>\n
In Zaporizhzhia region, the Energy Ministry said power had been restored after a blackout forced infrastructure to rely on reserves.<\/p>\n
“This is Russia’s war specifically against our people, against life in Ukraine – an attempt to break Ukraine,” Zelenskiy wrote on X after a European tour aimed at rallying support for Kyiv.<\/p>\n
Zelenskiy, speaking separately in his nightly video address, said, “There is information there could be a new, massive Russian strike this evening” and warned residents to heed alerts.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Embassy said it had also received \u2060information “concerning a potentially significant air attack that may occur at any time over \u200bthe next several days”.<\/p>\n
In Dnipro, generators hummed outside storefronts downtown, where residents told Reuters \u200bthey were used to disruptions.<\/p>\n
“This is not the first blackout, and I suspect that it will not be the last, so we are working – we are prepared,” said a barista who introduced herself as Iryna.<\/p>\n
In his address, \u200dZelenskiy said Russia was “placing greater emphasis \u2060on winter than on diplomacy, on ballistics against our energy sector rather than on working with America and reaching agreements with President Trump.<\/p>\n
“This needs to change, and it needs to change through pressure on Russia and support for Ukraine.”<\/p>\n
In Kryvyi Rih, \u2060key steel maker ArcelorMittal said it had temporarily suspended some production and Zaporizhstal, another major producer, also reported a suspension.<\/p>\n
Odesa Regional Governor Oleh Kiper said Russian drones had \u200chit port facilities around the city and damaged an empty oil storage tank.<\/p>\n
(Additional reporting by Mykhailo Moskalenko in DniproEditing \u200cby Philippa Fletcher, Gareth Jones, Ron Popeski, Frances Kerry and Cynthia Osterman)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Dan Peleschuk KYIV, Jan 8 (Reuters) – Ukrainian officials raced to restore power on Thursday after Russian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[144137,140324,2000,299,207099,207101,10146,199348,207100,657,20729,173263],"class_list":{"0":"post-683797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-dnipropetrovsk-region","9":"tag-drone-attacks","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-kryvyi-rih","13":"tag-oleksandr-vilkul","14":"tag-russian-missile","15":"tag-russian-strike","16":"tag-u-s-embassy","17":"tag-ukraine","18":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy","19":"tag-zelenskiy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115863458493121467","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}