Ukraine plans to evacuate civilians from recently liberated areas in the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, amid fears that the damage to infrastructure caused by the war is too severe for people to withstand the winter.
The Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Irina Vereshuk, has advised residents of the two southern regions that have been regularly bombed by Russian forces in the past months, to move to safer areas in the central and western parts of the country.
She added that the government will provide transportation, accommodation and medical care.
The evacuations come just over a week after Ukraine recaptured the city of Kherson – which remains close to the front line – and surrounding areas.
The liberation represents a major battlefield victory, while the evacuations highlight the difficulties Ukraine faces after Russia’s heavy bombing of its energy infrastructure as winter approaches.
The southern front of the war was the final focus of efforts of Russian and Ukrainian forces before Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson.
Recently, however, Moscow appears to be amassing forces and increasing its military efforts on the eastern Donbass front where the two sides have been locked in a bitter and inconclusive struggle for months, not least over the key town of Bakhmut.
With the Kremlin sending new reinforcements to the region, as well as forces previously deployed to the south, the Russian Armed Forces and Wagner’s mercenary group began stepping up efforts to break this long and bloody stalemate, with unconfirmed reports of the use of incendiary munitions. against the Ukrainian positions.
Russia has been bombing Ukraine’s power grid and other infrastructure from the air, causing widespread blackouts and leaving millions of Ukrainians without heat, electricity or water, as freezing cold and snow covered the capital Kyiv and other cities.
Power outages of four hours or more are expected in 15 Ukrainian regions on Monday, according to Volodymyr Kudritskyi, head of the state grid operator, Ukrainergo. More than 40% of Ukraine’s energy facilities have been damaged by Russian missile strikes in recent weeks.
While the situation in the recently liberated areas of the south led to the declaration of evacuations, it was hardly better in many other parts of the country.
The situation in Kyiv and other major cities deteriorated dramatically after the largest missile attack on the country’s power grid on Tuesday. Oknergo said that 40% of Ukrainians are facing hardship due to damage to at least 15 major energy centers across Ukraine. She warned that power outages could last anywhere from several hours to several days, adding: “Resilience and courage are what we need this winter.”
The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, also stressed the need for preparedness and flexibility in the face of possible power outages. “Worst case scenario. Actually, I don’t like to talk about it, but I have to be prepared if we want to [do not] “We have electricity and outages, no water, no heating, no services, and no communications,” he said on Friday.
“Thousands of kilometers of main high-voltage lines are not working,” Okernergo said, affecting the entire country.
News of the evacuation came as a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency prepared to conduct an assessment of the Zaporizhia nuclear plant on Monday, a day after UN agency chief Rafael Mariano Grossi accused opposing sides in the war, saying: “You are playing with fire.
“If they want to inspect a facility that has nothing to do with nuclear safety, access to it will be denied,” Rinat Karcha, advisor to the CEO of the Russian nuclear power plant operator Rosenergoatom, told the Tass news agency.
The repeated bombing of the Zaporizhzhya complex raised concerns about a serious accident 310 miles (500 kilometers) from the site of the world’s worst nuclear power plant accident, at Chernobyl in 1986.
The Zaporizhia plant provided about a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity before the Russian invasion, and had to run on back-up generators several times. It has six Soviet-designed water-cooled and uranium-235 water-moderate reactors.
The reactors are out of order but there is a risk of overheating of the nuclear fuel if the power driving the cooling systems is cut off.
Heavy fighting continues in the city of Kherson, where a series of explosions occurred on Monday, killing one person and hospitalizing four others as a result of the shelling, according to the deputy head of the President’s Office, Kirillo Tymoshenko.
Russian forces continue to strengthen their defenses along the eastern bank of the Dnipro River and build additional defensive lines deeper into Russian-controlled territory.
“The artillery duels continue, the fighting continues,” said Dmytro Plenchuk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military in the area. “Kherson is now on the front line.”
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