Blackouts in Ukraine and Moldova following the recent Russian strikes have become widespread.
The attack killed at least six citizens of Ukraine, and three nuclear reactors were shut down due to power outages.
Moldova wasn’t directly hit, but the country lost half its power.
Moscow has stepped up its attacks on the energy infrastructure of Ukraine as a result of winter sets in. The power grid needs repair in half of the country.
On Wednesday, an aircraft-raid alert was issued across Ukraine, followed by reports of explosions in many locations, including in the capital Kyiv and the Westerly city of Lviv.
News of a missile strike that hit a hospital in a southern Zaporizhzhia region hospital left a young child dead. The emergency services were called to attend to this incident.
Ukrainian general Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said Moscow launched 67 cruise missiles, and air defense systems successfully intercepted 51 projectiles narrowly.
The act ended up causing significant damage to the infrastructure of this country.
By evening in Kyiv, hundreds of citizens were without water and electricity in the parts of the city affected. By nightfall, Mayor Vitali Klitschko estimated that at least 80 citizens remained without water and power.
As stated by Ukraine’s State Service of Energy, most thermal and hydroelectric power stations were forced to shut down as well.
Several officials in southern Ukraine advised of renewed attacks from oblasts close to the Ukrainian border. The governor of Mykolaiv’s region exclaimed that “many rockets” were arriving from the south and west.
Kremlin Secretary of State Dmitriy Peskov refused to address the terrorist attacks during his stay in Yerevan but stated, “The future and the success of the special operation (Moscow’s term for the conflict in Ukraine) is beyond doubt.”
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin as “acting in the act of terror” and will hold a special session of the UN Security Council next evening in New York.
After the recent attacks, he pledged to fight against the war and praised Ukrainians as “an unbreakable people.”
Moscow has acknowledged that threatening Ukraine’s power grid could weaken its ability to fight and drive its leadership to the dealing table.
French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted that these attacks inflicted upon critical infrastructure were a war crime, similar to comments by the US.
Moldova in Total Blackout
More than two-thirds of Moldova was left without power following the alleged attack on the country’s energy infrastructure, deputy prime minister Andrei Spinu wrote on Twitter. He said the cause of the power outage was a major blackout.
Power was restored in large part of the city, Chisinau. An ordered third of the population lives there.
Moldova also experienced widespread blackouts due to bombs targeting energies on 15 November, Moldova’s President Igor Dodon said. Mobile communications networks were also affected by the attacks.
Sergiu Tofilat, a nuclear power plant worker and researcher, noted that during March, Moldova was connected to the rest of Europe by high-voltage electricity wires. An automatic shut-off button controlled the wires in the event of a cut or degradation if they were connected to Ukraine.
Maia Sandu, the Moldovan president, responded to the country’s electricity outages by saying that the Kremlin’s withdrawal of power had left Moldova in the dark.
The war in Ukraine is taking lives, destroying residential housing, and stopping electrical power services. But we can restore the electricity supply. The malfunction will be solved, and we can look forward to returning to natural light. All government institutions are working on this objective.
