Ukraine’s state energy company said gradual blackouts would continue nationwide on Tuesday, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying it was consuming more energy than was available to Ukrainians, and one power company director said: warned that the blackout would likely last until March.
“The Ukrainian power system has not yet fully recovered from the 6 waves. [Russian] Missiles hit and we can’t operate at full capacity,” power group Ukrenergo wrote on Telegram late Monday.
In a regular evening speech, Mr Zelensky urged local authorities and communities to repeatedly appeal to residents to reduce their energy use.
“Ukrainians will most likely have to endure a blackout at least until the end of March,” said Serhiy Kovalenko, CEO of Ukrainian power company Yasno.
Kovalenko said the best-case scenario would be without another Russian attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and “the power shortage will be evenly distributed across the country.”
But if Russia continues its barrage of missiles and drones on the power grid, Ukraine will have to use “not only an hourly shutdown for stabilization, but also an emergency shutdown, where there may be no light for a very long time. will have to,” he warned.
State officials said last week that weeks of Russian attacks left more than 10 million people without electricity, about a quarter of Ukraine’s population.
The number and length of power outages across the country, including the capital Kyiv, have increased in recent days as temperatures plummeted below freezing and the first snow fell in some areas this week.
