Nearly half of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has been put “out of order” following massive Russian strikes since early October, with kyiv calling on Friday for “additional support” from its European allies.
Russia has accused Ukraine of having “brutally” executed more than ten of its soldiers who had been taken prisoner, denouncing a “war crime”.
After more than a month and a half of bombardments using missiles or other kamikaze drones, the damage to the Ukrainian energy network is significant.
“Nearly half of our energy system has been put out of order,” Prime Minister Denys Chmygal lamented during a press conference in kyiv with European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis.
He thus called for “additional support” from the EU to deal with this situation, in particular “for the purchase of additional volumes of gas”.
Many Ukrainians are facing the onset of winter with little or no electricity and no hot water, as the first snowfall of winter fell across the country on Thursday.
“Several-hour restrictions are being imposed throughout Ukraine during the day,” the national electricity operator, Ukrenergo, said on Friday after President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday evening that “ten million Ukrainians” were always without power.
“Deliberate Murder”
Russia accused Ukraine of a “war crime” on Friday, claiming that kyiv troops had “brutally” executed more than ten of its soldiers who had just surrendered to Ukrainian forces.
“No one will be able to present the deliberate and methodical murder of more than 10 Russian soldiers who were immobilized […]with direct shots in the head, as a “tragic exception”, blasted the Russian Ministry of Defense in a press release.
This accusation comes after the publication on social networks of two videos of about thirty seconds each, presented as showing the execution of Russian soldiers by Ukrainian soldiers.
kyiv had not yet reacted to these accusations at the end of the afternoon.
But Ukraine has repeatedly asserted that the Russian military has allegedly committed “war crimes” and “atrocities”, including during the occupation of part of the kyiv region in March, but also in the territories of the regions of Kharkiv (north-east) and Kherson (south) recently taken over.
On Thursday, Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubynets said he said the “scale” of torture cases in Kherson, a southern city liberated a week ago, was “horrible”. .
According to the deputy head of the presidency, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, who has visited the region in recent days, “the Russians have not only killed, mined, but also robbed in our cities”, he denounced.
Fortifications in annexed Crimea, kyiv-Kherson train
After the recapture last week of part of the Kherson region by the Ukrainian army, kyiv and Moscow seemed to want to consolidate their positions as winter approaches.
Russia has announced that it is carrying out fortification work in the annexed Crimean peninsula, while the Russian military withdrawal to Kherson has enabled the Ukrainians to bring their guns closer to the region, which has already been targeted several times in recent months.
“Fortification works are being carried out under my control on the territory of Crimea in order to guarantee the safety of Crimeans,” said Sergei Aksionov, the governor installed by Moscow.
Since its annexation in 2014, Moscow has considered Crimea to be part of its territory, which is not recognized by the international community. kyiv has repeated several times in recent months wanting to retake the peninsula.
The Ukrainian national railway company, for its part, announced the reopening of the train line between the capital kyiv and the city of Kherson, a symbol a week to the day after its liberation.
“Today we are launching our first train from Kyiv to Kherson,” Natalia Tourchak, a spokeswoman for Ukrzaliznytsia, told AFP.
The trip is scheduled “at 10:14 p.m. from the capital, and will arrive tomorrow around 9:00 a.m. in Kherson”, with “about 200 passengers […] on board”, rejoiced on Facebook a local official, Serguiï Khlan.
“At the moment, it’s only one train. We will then see if it becomes a regular line” of the Ukrainian railway network, said Ms Tourchak.
On the ground, the Russian army claimed to have conquered the locality of Opytné in the Donetsk region, in eastern Ukraine.
In Poland, Ukrainian experts were working on Friday on the site where a missile fell on Tuesday to participate in the international investigation to shed light on the origin of this incident, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba said on Twitter. .
kyiv and Moscow reject responsibility for this strike, Warsaw considering “highly probable” that the missile which killed two people on the border with Ukraine was used by the Ukrainian defense.