(Kyiv) Nine people died Tuesday in Ukraine in house fires caused by candles, generators and gas appliances that Ukrainians are installing in their homes due to power cuts, Ukrainian relief said on Wednesday.
Russia has heavily bombed Ukrainian energy facilities since October, causing severe damage and leading to power outages that affect millions of Ukrainians every day.
“On yesterday (Tuesday) alone, there were 131 fires in Ukraine, including 106 in private homes. Nine people died and eight were injured,” Ukrainian emergency services said in a statement on Facebook.
The emergency services cite in particular “burning candles”, “gas cylinders in apartments” or even “generators on balconies” as causes of “more frequent fires and explosions”.
Ukrainians must resort to these means to have a little light or heat during the multiple time slots when they are without electricity.
During a meeting in Bucharest, Romania, on Wednesday with his G7 counterparts, the head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmytro Kouleba, spoke of the need to quickly restore the country’s civilian energy infrastructure.
He also again called on Kyiv’s allied countries to “provide Ukraine with the necessary equipment, transformers and generators that will help compensate for the damaged energy infrastructure”, an “extremely important” support, according to a statement issued by his ministry.
Earlier in the day, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Russian strikes targeting civilian infrastructure in Ukraine “barbaric”.