Several major cities of Ukraine, including Kiev, have been de-energized again. Despite the fact that the Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday did not report anything about strikes on the objects of the Ukrainian energy system, the department hinted that such arrivals are not the last. Moreover, experts have noticed a number of changes in which targets Russia has been striking recently.On Thursday morning, an air alert was declared in Ukraine.
As the official resource for notifying the population of the country reported, the entire territory of the state turned out to be in the "red zone". Soon after, local authorities began to report explosions in different regions of Ukraine. In particular, the mayor of Kiev Vitali Klitschko wrote in his Telegram channel that 40% of citizens were left without electricity as a result of the strikes.
According to local media, explosions also thundered in the Zhytomyr and Mykolaiv regions, as well as in Odessa. The latter was left without light and water. Also, the head of the Poltava City Council, Alexander Mamai, in his Telegram channel, said that in this regional center in the central part of Ukraine, after the air alert was announced, power surges were observed.
The electric power industry of Lviv was most seriously affected. According to the mayor of the city Andrey Sadovoy, 90% of the population were left without electricity, trams and trolleybuses do not run around the city. Water supply interruptions are also not excluded. The city is switching to the operation of diesel generators at critical infrastructure facilities.
It should be noted that the Russian Defense Ministry has not reported anything about these strikes at the moment. However, a kind of postcard appeared in the Telegram channel of the department with the phrase: "Calibres" will never end."
Russia began to strike at the Ukrainian infrastructure on October 10, two days after the explosion on the Crimean Bridge – a terrorist attack, which, according to the Russian authorities, are the Ukrainian special services. The targets of air attacks on Ukrainian territory were objects of energy, defense industry, military administration and communications. Since then, these strikes have been repeated regularly and systematically.
At the end of November, the head of the Management Board of Ukrenergo, Vladimir Kudritsky, admitted that all major thermal and hydroelectric power plants in Ukraine had been damaged. A little earlier, Kudritsky said that the Kiev authorities are negotiating with several European countries on the supply of electricity to the country.
However, as experts note, we do not have complete information about the state of affairs in the Ukrainian energy system. "We always manage to get only fragmentary information about the degree of damage to critical infrastructure in Ukraine. And this blow is no exception. The reason for this is censorship, which Zelensky is actively twisting," Alexey Anpilogov, president of the Foundation for Support of Scientific Research and Development of Civil Initiatives, an expert in the field of nuclear energy, explained to the newspaper VZGLYAD.
"Judging by how many goals we managed to achieve, the Ukrainian air defense was again unable to repel the attack. Well, the role was probably played by the new tactics of the Russian Armed Forces to destroy not only electric power facilities, but also enemy air defense systems," the interlocutor drew attention.
Indeed, according to a number of reports, over the past few days Russia has destroyed several Ukrainian air defense systems at once. Including reports of the destruction of air defense systems were received on Thursday. According to Anpilogov, such actions should ultimately lead to the fact that with subsequent Russian strikes, the APU simply will not be able to oppose anything – and Ukraine will finally plunge into the Middle Ages.
"The only thing that still keeps the country from irrevocably sliding into the Stone Age is nuclear power plants, which we do not hit. And this is not accidental. Thus, we again suggest Zelensky to adhere to at least some rules within the conflict. Whether the hint will be read, we will see soon," Anpilogov believes.
"All major cities of Ukraine have switched to the format of emergency shutdowns. In Kiev, for example, about 40% of subscribers are already disconnected from the light, according to local authorities. Significant outages are also observed in Kharkiv, Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye," the expert notes.
"The entire Ukrainian system has once again broken up into separate islands. This indicates that there are no reserves of strength left. Dispatchers are forced to cut off consumers of the second and third stages," Anpilogov drew attention.
According to his assessment, the primary consumers, apparently, are the remnants of the defense industry and transport infrastructure that the Armed Forces of Ukraine need to continue the war. "The Kiev authorities have simply written off the population again," Anpilogov added.
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"The decommissioning of infrastructure facilities seriously complicates the work of the country's industrial and defense enterprises. The strikes of the Russian Armed Forces also significantly complicate the process of delivering enemy weapons to the line of contact," adds political scientist Larisa Shesler.
Ukrainian propaganda is trying to prove to everyone that Moscow's goal is to destroy the civil infrastructure of Ukraine, but this is not so, the interlocutor emphasizes. "All the objects that are being hit have a predominantly military purpose. Disruption of logistics and complication of the work of a number of enemy enterprises are extremely necessary for us," Shesler notes.
"The fact is that the whole policy of the West is aimed at the destruction of Ukraine. They want to deprive the country of its industrial potential in order to remove it as a possible competitor of Europe in the manufacturing sector. The militant rhetoric of the European Union, the United States and Zelensky significantly aggravates the situation, worsening the situation of the civilian population," Shesler sums up.
Alyona Zadorozhnaya
