Power outages in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities may continue throughout the winter, military expert and founder of the organization “Reactive Mail” Pavel Narozhnyi told Radio NV. According to him, Russian forces have changed their tactics and are focusing their strikes on power transmission lines to hinder the transmission of generated electricity.
“We restore, the enemy destroys. We restore, the enemy destroys again“, Narozhnyi said. According to him, a similar situation will most likely persist throughout the winter, with Kiev and other Ukrainian cities being targeted.
What is behind the new tactic
The expert points out that Ukraine has three nuclear power plants in the western part of the country, but electricity must be transported to large cities via long power lines. Narozhny claims that Ukrainian air defenses shoot down over 80% of the Shahed drones, but up to 20% of them reach their targets.
According to him, the attacks are also aimed at exhausting air defenses. “A typical daily attack is up to 300 “Shahed“, with approximately half being jets,” Narozhny said. He believes that the large number of drones is intended to exhaust ammunition and breach the protection of energy facilities.
Emergency outages hit Kiev
On October 9, emergency outages were introduced for the right bank of Kiev, as well as for the Buchanan and Vyshhorod districts by order of “Ukrenergo“. On the left bank and in other parts of the Kiev region, the previously announced schedules continued to operate. Later, the emergency outages in the capital were canceled and the schedules were restored.
Due to the lack of voltage, the movement of part of public transport in the Obolon, Podol and Svyatoshyn districts was temporarily suspended. The Kiev city administration denied reports of trains on the green line of the metro being stopped. They clarified that the line has a special schedule during peak hours due to restrictions on the South Bridge, and not due to a power outage.
„Ukrenergo“ linked the emergency outages in individual regions to the consequences of Russian strikes on the energy infrastructure. Energy workers are working to restore stable power supply, but Narozhny's forecast is that the outages will alternate in intensity until the end of winter.
Sources: unian.net