A team of doctors had to use flashlights to continue an operation in Ukraine 1:10
(CNN) --
The race to restore power to homes in Ukraine is being slowed by "high winds, rain and sub-zero temperatures," the state-owned power supply company said in a statement Friday.
"The pace of restoration [to domestic consumers] is slowed by difficult weather conditions," Ukrenergo said, with the damage caused by Wednesday's large-scale Russian missile attack "worsened by freezing and breaking of cables in distribution networks.
It's the second day of desperate work to keep Ukraine's lights on.
Most power plants are now supplying power to the national grid after they were temporarily shut down on Wednesday when Moscow sent a barrage of missiles to target power "generating facilities" in its latest effort to cripple Ukrainian infrastructure, said Ukrenergo.
Power has been restored to "critical infrastructure facilities in all regions: boiler rooms, gas distribution stations, water utilities, wastewater treatment plants."
Satellite images show Ukraine in the dark 0:46
However, there is still an electricity deficit in the system and the Ukrainian authorities are engaged in the delicate job of trying to balance the national electricity grid, leaving many households without electricity.
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As repair crews worked desperately to repair the damage Thursday night, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky tried to reassure the large number of Ukrainians who were facing a second night without heat, electricity and water.
“The situation with electricity remains difficult in almost all regions.
However, we are gradually overcoming blackouts and every hour we are returning power to new consumers,” Zelensky said in his late-night video address, in what he called a “truly national task.”
This has been, month by month, the war in Ukraine: data and chronology on the Russian invasion
Kyiv's energy authorities rushed to restart power supply to all infrastructure in the capital like this building, pictured on November 23, amid adverse weather conditions. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters)
In the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, residents woke up to a thick layer of fog and temperatures hovering around the freezing point.
“I woke up cold.
The heat and electricity are off, again.
There's water.
But it might not last,” Tymofiy Mylovanov, a presidential adviser and director of the Ukrainian School of Economics, said on Twitter.
He “quickly plugged in power banks, phones, computers to charge” when power to his apartment was briefly restored in the middle of the night.
“I turned on our electric heater.
My wife was half asleep but she managed to tell me what I can cook quickly”.
Half of the people were without power as of Friday morning, the Kyiv city military administration wrote on Telegram, with Mayor Vitalii Klitschko saying only one in three houses had heating.
Klitschko said the engineers would supply electricity to consumers in shifts, for three hours, during the day.
Sergey Kovalenko, head of the YASNO energy company that supplies Kyiv, pleaded with people to be "patient": "We are talking about hours, not days, and especially not weeks."
Kovalenko said he hoped to give all residents a few hours of power this Thursday.
“The energy supply networks will try to evenly distribute the hours of electricity for everyone.
I mean, about 3 to 4 hours of power and then a 'change,'” he said.
This photo shows the city of Lviv without power after critical civilian infrastructure was hit by Russian missile strikes on November 23, 2022. (Pavlo Palamarchuk/Reuters)
Attacks on the electricity infrastructure of Ukraine
Russia's attack in Ukraine killed at least 10 people, including a teenage girl, and "led to the temporary de-energization of all nuclear power plants and most thermal and hydroelectric power plants," Ukraine's Energy Ministry said.
It left much of the country without electricity, with knock-on effects on heating, water supply and internet access in some areas.
Wednesday marked the first time Ukraine's four nuclear power plants had been shut down simultaneously in 40 years, the head of the state-owned nuclear power company Energoatom said in a statement.
Petro Kotin said it was a precautionary measure and that he expected them to reconnect Thursday night.
The three fully operational plants in Ukrainian hands (the occupied Zaporizhzhia plant has not been operating since September) would help supply electricity to the national grid, he said.
Ukraine is highly dependent on nuclear power, according to the World Nuclear Association.
It has 15 reactors at four plants that, before the full-scale invasion of Russia in February, generated about half of its electricity.
Russia has turned its attention to destroying Ukraine's energy infrastructure ahead of the bitter winter season, and successive waves of strikes have left much of the country facing rolling blackouts.
The UN human rights chief said on Friday that millions of Ukrainians are "plunged into dire and appalling living conditions" due to Moscow's repeated attacks on energy facilities, adding: "Taken as a whole, this raises serious problems in the context of international humanitarian law”, which requires a concrete and direct military advantage for each object attacked”.
The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has confirmed the deaths of 77 civilians since Russia "began its continuous barrage of missile attacks and loitering munitions" on October 10.
Local residents charge their devices, use internet connection and warm up inside a shelter in Kyiv on November 24, 2022. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters)
Surgeons operate by the light of portable lamps
The blackouts on Wednesday wreaked havoc across the country, leaving the capital Kyiv, the western city of Lviv and the entire Odessa region in the dark.
People who had taken shelter from airstrikes in the capital left their bunkers to find their homes without power and scrambled to find a place to spend the night with friends or family.
One in four homes in the city were still without power as of Thursday morning.
While water supply was restored to all districts by mid-afternoon, it was still not running at full capacity, with high-rise buildings experiencing low water pressure, Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said.
A video from the Reuters news agency showed people in the capital queuing to collect water from public wells in torrential rain.
Hospitals relied on generator power or even headlamps used by staff as they continued to conduct operations.
At a Kyiv hospital, doctors were operating on a child's heart when the power went out.
Dr. Borys Todurov posted a video on Instagram showing surgeons working in the light of their headlights as they waited for the generator to kick in.
The director of a hospital in the central Dnipropetrovsk region said that "dozens of critically ill patients were on the operating tables of the Mechnikova Hospital" when the blackout occurred.
“Anesthesiologists and surgeons turn on the headlights to save each one of them,” Dr. Sergii Ryzhenko wrote on Facebook.
He posted a photo of two doctors, whom he said were Yaroslav Medvedyk and Kseniya Denysova, operating on a 23-year-old man when the power went out, "for the first time in 35 years of work."
Ukrainian doctors perform surgery by lamplight in Kyiv on November 24. Borys Todurov/Instagram
The European Union promises new sanctions
Zelensky called for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council following the attacks, which were quickly condemned by Ukraine allies.
The European Union announced it would prepare a ninth package of sanctions against Moscow, in what European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said was an attempt to "further reduce its ability to wage war against Ukraine."
French President Emmanuel Macron said Russia's attack demanded a response.
“Ukraine suffered a massive shelling today, leaving much of the country without water or electricity.
Attacks against civilian infrastructure are war crimes and cannot go unpunished,” he tweeted on Wednesday night.
Poland said on Wednesday that the Patriot missile defense system that Germany had offered to Poland should go to Ukraine instead.
"After more missile attacks (from Russia), I turned to (Germany) to transfer the proposed Patriot batteries (from Poland) to (Ukraine) and deploy them on the western border," Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said. , On twitter.
Germany's offer to Poland came after a missile struck Polish territory near the Ukrainian border on November 15, killing two people.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that Ukraine's leaders could stop the suffering by complying with Russia's demands.
“The Ukrainian leadership has every opportunity to bring the situation back to normal, it has every opportunity to resolve the situation in such a way as to meet the requirements of the Russian side and, accordingly, stop all possible suffering of the population. local.
”, Peskov said in a call with journalists.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's Defense Ministry sent out a tweet on Thursday marking nine months since Russia's invasion on February 24.
"Nine months. The amount of time a child is born. In nine months of its full-scale invasion, Russia has killed and injured hundreds of our children, kidnapped thousands of them and turned millions of children into refugees," he said. .
-- CNN's Jo Shelley wrote from London, Olga Voitovych and Victoria Butenko reported from Kyiv.
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