Kyiv, Ukraine
CNN
—
The mayor of Kyiv said the city ‘can’t let Putin steal our Christmas’ as Ukrainians prepare to tentatively celebrate the holiday season with gloomy trees while Russian airstrikes knock out power and wreak havoc on critical infrastructure.
Christmas trees will be erected in the Ukrainian capital to mark Christmas and the New Year, Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko told Ukrainian newspaper RBC-Ukraine, but energy company YASNO said they would not be lit.
Mass events will remain banned under martial law, but “no one is going to cancel New Years and Christmas, and there should be a New Years atmosphere,” Klitschko told the network. “We can’t let Putin steal our Christmas.”
His appeal comes after weeks of sustained air attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid, which left families across the country intermittently without power, light or water.
Authorities are rushing to restore resources faster than Russia can knock them out. Ukrainian electricity operator Ukrenergo said on Tuesday it was operating with a 30% deficit, 3% more than the day before, after implementing a series of “emergency shutdowns” across the country in “several power stations”.
Kyiv’s Christmas trees will be a nod to normality in city sights, including the famous Sophia Square. Klitschko said they will be installed “to remind our children of the New Year’s mood”.
“You know, we don’t want to take Saint Nicholas away from the kids,” he said.
But YASNO clarified that the trees would be erected but without lights. In a short statement on Facebook, the company said: “We don’t know about you, but we are glad there is [trees] and a decision on the lack of lighting on them.
YASNO cited the load that full illumination would place on the Ukrainian grid, saying it “will reduce a significant additional load on the grid. And, therefore, reduce the number of power outages.
Given the deteriorating weather conditions, electricity consumption is on the rise, Ukrenergo said, saying she hoped the electricity deficit would narrow as “units resume operations”. Seven waves of Russian missiles contributed to the latest series of failures, he claimed. CNN is unable to independently verify the number of missile waves.
But the race to fill gaps in the power grid is likely to be a recurring theme as Ukrainians brace for a cold, dark winter. As recently as Sunday, Kyiv had “almost completely restored” its electricity, water, heating, internet and network coverage, the Kyiv City Military Administration said at the time.
Speaking ahead of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Bucharest, the head of the military alliance said Russian President Vladimir Putin was “trying to use winter as a weapon of war”.
NATO allies have delivered generators to help Ukraine restore its collapsed energy infrastructure, Jens Stoltenberg said, but he added that he expected the message from foreign ministers to be that the Allies “must do more”, including supplying Ukraine with more air defense systems and ammunition. .
And the first lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska has urged the international community stay focused on the conflict as the holiday season approaches.
“We hope that the approaching Christmas season will not make you forget our tragedy and accustom you to our suffering,” she said in a BBC radio interview on Tuesday, during a visit to London.
“I realize that nine months is a very long time, and Ukrainians are very tired of this war, but we have no choice in the matter. We are fighting for our lives. The British public has a choice: he can get used to our tragedy and focus on his own important things in life,” she said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on local authorities, including in Kyiv, to do more to build his government’s “points of invincibility” – pop-up stations offering shelter and services, such as facilities electric charging, internet connections and hot water.
Zelensky criticized the rollout of the program, particularly in the capital where he said only some sites were working properly. “Other points still need to be improved, to put it mildly,” he said. “The people of Kyiv need more protection.”
And Kyiv Regional Clinical Hospital, one of Ukraine’s largest hospitals, was set to move patients on dialysis last week, which requires an uninterrupted water supply, said Vitaliy Vlasiuk, deputy head. of the military administration of the Kyiv region, in a telephone interview. .
“Unfortunately, when electricity is cut in Kyiv, the central water supply also often breaks down,” Vlasiuk said. “The lack of water supply is critical.”
During this time, the the UN said that the situation in the cities of southern Ukraine, Mykolaiv and Kherson, remains “catastrophic” and “critical”. Nearly a quarter of a million people in Mykolaiv face a lack of heat, water and electricity.