By Monday afternoon, 4 areas — Lviv, Poltava, Sumy and Kharkiv — had been with out electrical energy, officers mentioned. In Kharkiv, electrically powered trolleys, buses and trams glided to a cease. Electrical trains headed west from Kyiv by no means made it out of the station. In all, 11 infrastructure websites had been reported to be hit.
“Right this moment, the enemy is testing us,” mentioned Ihor Terekhov, the mayor of Kharkiv. “The aggressor takes out his anger on the civilian inhabitants.”
Ukrainian officers mentioned they might resort to rolling blackouts to keep away from overloading backup electrical traces, and warned residents to brace themselves for outages.
By Monday night, electrical energy was reconnected to most of Kharkiv, the State Emergency Service introduced in a Fb publish. Energy had additionally been principally restored in Lviv, and all residents ought to count on to have water by morning, Andriy Sadovyi, the town’s mayor, mentioned in a Twitter publish.
Many of the targets, mentioned Mr. Arestovych, the Zelensky adviser, had been infrastructure liable for offering warmth and electrical energy to civilians. Ukraine’s navy, he mentioned, won’t be affected. “They don’t depend on the common energy grids,” he mentioned. “They’ve their mills, their very own means of manufacturing electrical energy.”
The tactic of making an attempt to freeze Ukrainians into submission isn’t new. The Kremlin has for years studied Ukraine’s power networks and has sought to govern costs or reduce pure fuel deliveries to affect politics. Twice earlier than, Russia has reduce pure fuel provides to Ukraine in midwinter.
Now, it’s pursuing the identical objective with bombs.
The strategy could also be unlikely to pressure Ukrainians to the bargaining desk, consultants mentioned.