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Russia launched a Christmas Day attack on Ukraine’s power system, leaving more than half a million customers without heat, water and electricity.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack, the 13th major attack of 2024 on the country’s grid, was “deliberate” and not an accident. “What could be more inhuman?” wrote to X.
About 50 of the 70 missiles fired in the attack were intercepted, as well as a “significant” part of the more than 100 drones that were attacked, Zelenskyy added.
This year Ukrainians marked Christmas Day on December 25 for the second time, after switching to the western Gregorian calendar last year. The decision to stop celebrating Christmas on January 7 in accordance with the Orthodox calendar was made by Kyiv to break away from Russian influence.
Oleh Syniehubov, the governor of Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region, told Ukrainian state TV that the attack left more than half a million customers without heat, water and electricity.
The temperature throughout Ukraine is very cold.
Heating systems were also cut off in some parts of Ivano-Frankivsk and Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine, in the west and south of the country.
Ukraine’s power grid operator, Ukrenergo, has urged customers to reduce consumption by not turning on too many appliances at once, adding that the system is still recovering from the previous Russian attack on December 13 .
Ukraine’s largest private power company, DTEK, said its power stations were damaged and one of its long-time employees was killed.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andriy Sybiha, told X that the attack reflected Russian president Vladimir Putin’s response to “those who talked about ‘ceasing the Christmas war'”.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said last week that Zelenskyy rejected his proposal for a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange on Orthodox Christmas, January 7.
Ukraine denied that such a proposal had ever been on the table, asking Hungary to “give itself a lie” about the war. On Friday, Heorhii Tykhyi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, described it as “a PR move” by Orbán.
