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Russia carried out a Christmas Day attack on Ukraine’s energy system, leaving more than half a million consumers without heat, water and electricity.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack, the 13th large-scale assault of 2024 on the country’s power grid, was “deliberate” and not a coincidence. “What could be more inhumane?” wrote in X.
About 50 of the 70 missiles fired in the attack were intercepted, along with a “significant” portion of the more than 100 attack drones deployed, Zelenskyy added.
This year Ukrainians celebrated Christmas Day on December 25 for the second time, after switching to the Western Gregorian calendar last year. kyiv made the decision to stop celebrating Christmas on January 7 according to the Orthodox calendar to break with Russian influence.
Oleh Syniehubov, governor of Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region, told Ukrainian national television news that the attack had left more than half a million consumers without heat, water and electricity.
Temperatures throughout Ukraine are around freezing.
Heating supplies were also cut off in some areas of the Ukrainian regions of Ivano-Frankivsk and Dnipropetrovsk in the west and south of the country.
Ukraine’s power grid operator Ukrenergo urged consumers to limit consumption by not turning on multiple appliances at once, adding that the system was still recovering from the previous Russian attack on December 13.
Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said its power plants had been damaged and one of its long-term employees had died.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said on X that the attack reflects Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response to “those who spoke of an illusory ‘Christmas ceasefire’.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said last week that Zelenskyy had rejected his proposal for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange on Orthodox Christmas, January 7.
Ukraine denied that such a proposal was ever on the table and called on Hungary to “refrain from manipulations” regarding the war. On Friday, Heorhii Tykhyi, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, described it as “a public relations move” by Orbán.
