Ukrainian emergency workers have managed to restore electricity power to almost 6 million people in the last 24 hours after Russia's latest wave of attacks targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on December 17.
"Repair work continues without a break after yesterday's terrorist attack," Zelenskiy said in a video address.
Russian forces fired more than 70 missiles on December 16 that pitched multiple cities into darkness and forced people to endure sub-zero temperatures without heating or running water.
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By the evening of December 17, two-thirds of homes in Kyiv had been reconnected to electricity and all had regained access to water, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. He said the subway, which had stopped running so that people could shelter underground, had resumed service early on December 17.
Half of Kyiv Province, which surrounds but doesn't include the capital, still lacked electricity a day after the attack, regional Governor Oleksiy Kuleba said. Rain and snow, making power lines icy, were complicating efforts to restore power, he added.
Energy provider Ukrenerho had warned that extensive damage in the north, south, and center of the country meant that repairs could take some time.
“Priority will be given to critical infrastructure: hospitals, water-supply facilities, heat-supply facilities, sewage-treatment plants,” the state firm said in a statement late on December 16.
Electricity had been restored to the entire Kharkiv Province, including Kharkiv city, the country's second-largest metropolis, regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said on December 17.
In the central Ukrainian city of Kryviy Rih, emergency workers retrieved the body of a toddler from the rubble in a predawn search for survivors of a Russian missile strike that tore through an apartment building, local officials said on December 17.
In all, four people were killed in the strike and 13 injured -- four of them children, authorities said.
On December 16, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources Geoffrey Pyatt, who served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in 2013-16, visited Kyiv to oversee the delivery of the first batch of emergency power-grid equipment from the United States since Washington announced a $53 million package of targeted assistance last month.
Pyatt held talks with leading officials and Ukrenerho managers to discuss how the United States and other allies can help Kyiv cope with the Russian attacks.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell issued a statement condemning Russia’s December 16 attacks as “yet another example of the Kremlin’s indiscriminate terror.”
“These bombings are war crimes and are barbaric,” Borrell said. “All those responsible shall be held accountable.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the December 16 attacks by its "high-precision" weapons hit parts of Ukraine's military-industrial complex and energy and military administrative facilities.
"As a result of the strike, the transportation of weapons and ammunition of foreign production has been thwarted," the ministry said on December 17. The ministry claimed that Ukraine's plants producing weapons, military equipment, and ammunition had been disabled by the strikes.
Since October, in the wake of a spate of embarrassing military setbacks in Ukraine, Moscow has waged an aerial campaign against Ukraine’s energy grid and other civilian infrastructure. Moscow says the attacks are targeting military-linked facilities.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with military commanders to discuss the war.
The Kremlin reported on December 17 that Putin had spent the “entire” previous day listening to the reports of generals together with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu; Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov; and the commander of the operation in Ukraine, General Sergei Surovikin.