The operating room is unusually dark. Only one lamp gives light to the doctors. You operate on a child’s open heart. Thanks to a generator, the important devices still run in the background. Because the heart institute in Kiev was without power. The reason: the Russian army attacked the power grid in Ukraine again on Wednesday.
After the Russian shelling, the water and electricity supply in Kiev was cut off on Wednesday. According to the Ukrainian authorities, there were also power cuts in other parts of the country. A substation was damaged by rocket attacks in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. Governor Maxym Kosyzky said power was out in two parts of the city.
Three Ukrainian nuclear power plants had to be disconnected from the power grid due to the heavy shelling. Due to the massive blackout, all reactors at the nuclear power plants of Rivne, Pivdennoukrainsk and Khmelnyzka were automatically disconnected from the power grid, state operator Energoatom said.
“Humanitarian Crimes”
In total, Russia fired some 70 cruise missiles on Wednesday, according to the Ukrainian air force, 51 of which were shot down by Ukrainian air defenses. Also, five Lancet kamikaze drones were destroyed. Mayor Vitali Klitschko (51) said three people were killed in the attack on Kiev, including a 17-year-old girl. According to Ukrainian sources, a Russian attack on a hospital in southern Ukraine killed a newborn baby in the maternity ward. According to police chief Igor Klymenko (50), at least six people were killed and 36 injured across the country on Wednesday.
At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (44) condemned the Russian attacks on the Ukrainian power grid as a “crime against humanity”. “If we have sub-zero temperatures and millions of people are left without energy, without heating and without water, it is a blatant crime against humanity,” Zelensky said in his video address on Wednesday. The ongoing Russian attacks hit Ukraine hard.
Zelensky accused Moscow of “terrorism and murder” and instructed the Ukrainian ambassador to the UN to request an emergency meeting about the heavy rocket fire on Kiev. “The murder of civilians, the destruction of civilian infrastructure are acts of terrorism,” he said on Twitter ahead of the meeting. The international community must provide a “decisive response”. (AFP/jmh)