Evening power outages affected four million Ukrainians, reports President Zelenskyy
Dark Kyiv during an emergency power outage (Photo:REUTERS/Gleb Garanich)
Power outages, intended to stabilize the shelling-damaged Ukrainian power grid, affected up to four million Ukrainians on Oct. 28, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during his evening address that day.
"Currently, the schedule of stabilization power outages applies in many cities and regions of our country,” he explained.
“About four million of Ukrainians face power restrictions now in Kyiv and Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Poltava, Rivne, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Cherkasy and Kirovohrad oblasts. An emergency shutdown may also occur in other oblasts.”
Zelenskyy added the authorities are doing everything they can to make the outages shorter.
"Every day, we’re work together with our partners to strengthen Ukraine’s air defense and other forces,” he said.
“We are strengthening the protection of the energy infrastructure.”
Power transmission system operator Ukrenergo applied emergency power outages in Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast, additionally to already scheduled rolling blackouts, after another Russian attack on an energy infrastructure facility on Oct. 27.
The electricity shortage in Kyiv amounted to up to 30% of demand. To prevent a complete blackout of the capital and the central regions of Ukraine, Ukrenergo was forced to apply unprecedented power supply restrictions, the operator stated.
The DTEK energy company announced they were preparing new blackouts schedules for Kyiv. The duration of the outages may be increased to six hours from four, and even more in the coming days.
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