Russian Attacks Leave Kharkiv in the Dark

Power had been restored to some neighborhoods by later Sunday night
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Sep 12, 2022 12:29 AM CDT
Kharkiv Apparently Without Power After Russian Attacks
Ukrainian State Emergency Service firefighters put out the fire after a Russian rocket attack hit an electric power station in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. The Kharkiv and Donetsk regions have been completely de-energised in the rocket attack.   (AP Photo/Kostiantyn Liberov)

Russia attacked power stations and other infrastructure Sunday, causing widespread outages across Ukraine as Kyiv’s forces pressed a swift counteroffensive that has driven Moscow's troops from swaths of territory it had occupied in the northeast, the AP reports. The bombardment ignited a massive fire at a power station on Kharkiv's western outskirts and killed at least one person. President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced the “deliberate and cynical missile strikes” against civilian targets as acts of terrorism. Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv appeared to be without power Sunday night. Cars drove through darkened streets, and the few pedestrians used flashlights or mobile phones to light their way.

In Sunday night’s missile attacks by Russia, the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions seemed to bear the brunt. Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Sumy had only partially lost power, Zelensky said. Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov called the power outage “revenge by the Russian aggressor for the successes of our army at the front, in particular, in the Kharkiv region.” Ukrainian officials said Russia hit Kharkiv TEC-5, the country’s second-biggest heat and power plant, and Zelensky posted video of the Kharkiv power plant on fire. “Russian terrorists remain terrorists and attack critical infrastructure. No military facilities, only the goal of leaving people without light and heat,” he tweeted.

But Zelensky remained defiant despite the attacks. Addressing Russia, he added: “Do you still think you can intimidate, break us, force us to make concessions? ... Cold, hunger, darkness and thirst for us are not as scary and deadly as your `friendship and brotherhood.’ But history will put everything in place. And we will be with gas, lights, water and food … and WITHOUT you!” Later in the evening some power had been restored in some regions. None of the outages were believed to be related to the shutdown of the reactors at the Zaporizhzhia plant.

(More Ukraine stories.)

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