Kyiv mayor warns of winter without heat, water or electricity – Saudi Gazette

Kyiv mayor warns of winter without heat, water or electricity – Saudi Gazette

KYIV — The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, has warned residents they must prepare for the worst this winter if Russia keeps striking the country’s energy infrastructure — and that means possibly having no electricity, water, or heat in the freezing cold winter months.

“We are doing everything to avoid this. But let’s be frank, our enemies are doing everything for the city to be without heat, without electricity, without water supply, in general, so we all die,” Klitschko told Ukrainian state media.

“The future of the country and the future of each of us depends on how prepared we are for different situations,” he added.

Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelensky said late on Sunday that about 4.5 million people were without electricity.

He called on Ukrainians to endure the hardships, saying “we must get through this winter and be even stronger in the spring than now.”

Russia has focused on striking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure over the last month, causing power shortages and rolling outages across the country. Kyiv was having hourly rotating blackouts on Sunday in parts of the city and the surrounding region.

Rolling blackouts also were planned on Monday in the Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Sumy, Kharkiv, Poltava, and Zhytomyr regions, according to Ukraine’s state-owned energy