leaves 80% of kyiv without water or electricity after a rain of missiles

Now, only in the Ukrainian capital, more than 80% of the population it has no access to clean water and 350,000 apartments have lost power, according to the city’s mayor, Vitali Klichko. Thus, while the authorities try restore service as soon as possible, citizens have been forced to queue for hours to be able to fill jugs and plastic bottles in the few public fountains that work.

After the Kerch bridge, which connects Russia with Crimea, was blown up in mid-October, the Kremlin’s army bombarded more than a dozen cities with long-range missiles, most of them far from the front line. causing serious damage to residential buildings and hydroelectric plants. On this occasion, Putin’s revenge is motivated by an alleged Ukrainian drone attack on Russian ships in Sevastopol Bay. An episode that he has also used to justify his departure from the pact with the United Nations and Turkey for the export of cereals through the Black Sea.

Have passed more than 250 days of war and Putin has changed his strategy numerous times, although he remains unable to stop the Ukrainian counteroffensive. This new barrage of projectiles on civilians could be considered part of a new tactic aimed to frighten the population. However, it is no coincidence that the Russian president has decided to leave Ukrainians without electricity, water, internet or heating right now, as the ‘overall winter’.

A historical ally

Moscow has been looking to the sky for weeks now, trusting that November will bring a drastic drop in temperatures and precipitation in the form of snow and rain. Because the weather influences, sometimes decisively. And for Russia, the cold winter has always been an ally, like when it foiled Hitler’s Germany’s attempt to take over the USSR during World War II.

[Así impactaron los drones ucranianos en el buque insignia de la flota rusa: el vídeo del ataque]

With cold and frost, the terrain hardens and complicates the mobility of heavy vehicles. When the snow arrives, it turns to mud, flooding the trenches and making it almost impossible for any army to move. The pace of the war slows down substantially for both sides. And that, for a Russian army in red numbers, is practically a blessing, since it would allow it to prepare (in record time, yes) the 300,000 reservists mobilized and rebuild your line of defense on several fronts.

If you add to that a “enemy” Without access to water, electricity and heating, the options for going back up increase. Perhaps for this reason, without ruling out a strategy of terror, Moscow has chosen to attack Ukraine’s energy system, already weakened by the previous coup.

“I want to ask the émigrés not to come back. We need to survive the winter”

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk

The entire country is facing a tremendous energy crisis. So much so that the The Ukrainian government fears that Russian attacks will make it impossible for the population to survive during the cold months. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk was even forced to ask refugees outside the country not to return. “I want to ask you not to come back. We need to survive the winter,” the national television network said during an interview.

For his part, the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, asked his citizens to try to save as much electricity as possible in their daily lives. In addition, the Minister of Energy, German Galushchenko, announced that would cut the frequency of some transport services to reduce energy consumption, among other measures.