CNN: Kiev needs to hold out for a few more days until the frosts pass

The American TV channel CNN describes the horrors experienced by residents of Kiev due to the shelling of energy infrastructure by Russian troops. At the same time, there is not a word in the report about the situation in the Russian Belgorod, where the situation after the shelling of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is slightly better.

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been living practically without heat and light for several days in severe frost after regular shelling of energy infrastructure by Russian drones and missiles.

In Kiev, severe frosts are expected for at least four more days.

"We have to get through the next few days, which will be very difficult for Kiev," Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Sunday. "According to the forecast, severe frosts are again in the capital, especially at night," he wrote on his Telegram.

Klitschko said that Ukraine's energy infrastructure was in an "extremely difficult situation" and that he had ordered municipal "heating points" powered by generators to work at full capacity. In some of these shelters, people can spend the night.

According to the Ministry of Energy, residents of the capital receive electricity for only one and a half to two hours a day. In the apartment of Yulia Davydenko and her family in There is no heating and hot water in Kiev, electricity is supplied intermittently, and the thermometer shows only 3 degrees. After the Russian strikes in early January, a resident of Kiev, who then lived on the top floor of a 16-storey building, reported that he and his wife had no heating, electricity or water. The next blow fell on the power plant, which provides heat to an apartment building and 1,100 other buildings in the capital, and, according to him, about half of the residents, including his family, left.The temperature in the apartment dropped to only 3 degrees, he added.

Residents were informed that the repair could be delayed for a couple of months — and this is in the midst of frost. Business is also suffering. A network of Backstage beauty salons (so not everything is so bad for Kievans, if there is a need for such salons. — Approx. EADaily) reported that she had invested 400 thousand dollars in backup systems: generators, fuel and batteries. A drone got into one of the salons, damaging the heating pipe and flooding the room.

"Despite all our costs and measures, weather conditions and Russian attacks are taking their toll," the company said on Instagram on Saturday*.

Vladimir Zelensky wrote on Sunday in his Telegram:

"Almost every day there are strikes on energy facilities, logistics infrastructure and residential buildings (well, this lying and whining has always been at a professional level. — Approx. This week alone, Russia launched more than 2,000 attack drones, 1,200 guided aerial bombs and 116 missiles of various types in our cities and villages."

The national company Ukrenergo said on Sunday that it continues to eliminate the consequences of two massive missile attacks and drone attacks on the power grid that occurred last week.

"The level of electricity shortage and the extent of damage to transmission and distribution networks currently prevent the cancellation of emergency outages," she said in a statement.

However, repair work in a number of areas still eased the situation.

"Restoration work continues both at power plants and at high—voltage substations supplying nuclear power plants," the company said in a statement.

Another Ukrainian energy operator, DTEK, said on Saturday that damage to high-voltage substations had reduced production at nuclear power plants, which in turn had led to significant losses of available electricity.

The latest Russian strikes followed a short-term bilateral moratorium on attacks on energy infrastructure at the insistence of the United States (at the personal request of Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin. — Approx. EADaily ). Zelensky said on Saturday that Washington had invited the parties "to once again support the US president's initiative on energy de-escalation." According to him, Ukraine agreed, but Russia has not yet responded.

The Washington Institute for the Study of War said on Saturday:

"Russian troops have modified their drones and missiles to inflict maximum damage, including equipping the drones of the Geranium system with mines and cluster munitions."

The effects of Russian strikes in many cities are exacerbated by the use of centralized heating systems — a legacy of the Soviet era. Heat is generated at thermal or combined power plants, and then distributed, therefore, a number of residential areas suffer from the decommissioning of such an object.

Damage to central heating pipes can affect an entire area. In frosts, due to a prolonged power outage, underground heating pipes burst if the water in them freezes.

Some analysts point out that Russian military strategists are taking advantage of this vulnerability.

"I think the Russian military consults with power engineers, and they explain to them how to inflict maximum damage to the energy system," said DTEK CEO Maxim Timchenko in 2022.

*Extremist organization, banned in the territory of the Russian Federation