Ukraine could face rolling blackouts across the country through March, an energy expert said, due to what another official described Tuesday as the "colossal" damage done to Ukraine's power grid by relentless Russian airstrikes. Ukrainians are being told to stock up on supplies and evacuate hard-hit areas.
"Although there are fewer blackouts now, I want everyone to understand: Most likely, Ukrainians will have to live with blackouts until at least the end of March," said Sergey Kovalenko, CEO of private energy provider DTEK Yasno.
"I think we need to be prepared for different options, even the worst ones. Stock up on warm clothes, blankets, think about what will help you wait out a long shutdown," he said, addressing Ukrainian residents.
Russia has been pummelling Ukraine's power grid and other infrastructure from the air for weeks, as the war approaches its nine-month milestone. That onslaught has caused widespread blackouts and deprived millions of Ukrainians of electricity, heat and water.
Unseasonably mild autumn gives way to snow
Kovalenko said even if no more Russian airstrikes occur, scheduled outages will be needed across Ukraine to ensure that power is evenly distributed across the country's battered energy grid.
Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, chief of state-owned grid operator Ukrenergo, said on Tuesday that practically no thermal or hydroelectric stations had been left unscathed after Nov. 15, although he dismissed the need to evacuate civilians. He said the damage was "colossal."
Temperatures have been unseasonably mild in Ukraine this autumn, but are starting to dip below zero and are expected to drop to –20 C or even lower in some areas during the winter months. Snow has already come to many areas, including Kyiv.
"This winter will be life-threatening for millions of people in Ukraine," said Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, the World Health Organization's regional director for Europe, due to the lack of power and Ukraine's damaged health facilities.
Ukrainian authorities have started evacuating civilians from recently liberated sections of the southern Kherson and Mykolaiv regions out of fear that the winter will be too hard to survive.
In a Telegram message for Kherson residents — especially the elderly, women with children and those who are ill or disabled — Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk posted a number of ways residents can express interest in leaving.
"You can be evacuated for the winter period to safer regions of the country," she wrote.
WATCH | Long road back for liberated Kherson:
The battle for terrain has continued unabated despite the deteriorating weather conditions, with Ukrainian forces pressing against Russian positions as part of a weeks-long counteroffensive and Moscow's forces keeping up shelling and missile strikes.
In a key battlefield development, a Ukrainian official acknowledged that Kyiv's forces are attacking Russian positions on the Kinburn Spit, which is a gateway to the Black Sea basin and parts of the southern Kherson region that are still under Russian control.
Capturing the Kinburn Spit could help Ukrainian forces push into territory Russia still holds in the Kherson region "under significantly less Russian artillery fire" than directly crossing the Dnipro, a Washington-based think-tank said.
The Institute for the Study of War added that control of the area would help Kyiv alleviate Russian strikes on Ukraine's southern seaports and allow Ukraine to increase its naval activity in the Black Sea.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's presidential office said Tuesday that at least eight civilians were killed and 16 were injured over the previous 24 hours, as Moscow's forces once again used drones, rockets and heavy artillery to pound eight Ukrainian regions.
Since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, the war has killed at least 16,784 civilians and injured 10,189, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates.
In the eastern Donetsk region, fierce battles continued around the city of Bakhmut, where the Kremlin's forces are keen to clinch a victory after weeks of embarrassing military setbacks.
Raid on monastery
Meanwhile, Ukraine's counter-intelligence service, police officers and the country's National Guard on Tuesday searched one of the most famous Orthodox Christian sites in the capital, Kyiv, after a priest spoke favourably about Russia —Ukraine's invader — during a service.
The sprawling Kyiv Pechersk Lavra complex — or Monastery of the Caves — is a Ukrainian cultural treasure and the headquarters of the Russian-backed wing of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that falls under the Moscow Patriarchate.
Overlooking the right bank of the Dnipro River, it has been a pilgrimage site for centuries.
The search, motivated by apparent security service suspicions of possible Russian covert operations at the complex, highlighted deep splits in the Orthodox church in Ukraine that have been sharpened by the nine-month Russian invasion.
Hundreds of Ukrainian Orthodox communities have cut their ties with the Moscow-governed branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that was long one of the main sources of Russian influence and power in Ukraine. They transitioned to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
But others remain loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate. The Pechersk Lavra monastic complex is part of that church. An Associated Press journalist saw dozens of officers conducting checks Tuesday both inside and outside the site, which remained open to visitors who showed their IDs.
Russia's Orthodox Church condemned the raid as an "act of intimidation."
Russia slashes spending on health care, schools, roads
Domestically, Russia plans to spend nearly one-third of next year's budget on defence and domestic security while slashing funding for schools, hospitals and roads as it diverts cash to support its military campaign in Ukraine.
A Reuters budget analysis shows Moscow will spend a combined $207 billion Cdn on defence and security, squeezing out other priorities in a critical year leading up to a likely re-election bid by President Vladimir Putin in 2024.
The combined military and security outlay is a record for the Kremlin but amounts to only about 18 per cent of what the United States plans to spend in the next fiscal year on defence and some, but not all, national security needs.
The changing shape of the budget reflects Russia's efforts to bolster its military effort in Ukraine, where it has lost substantial ground since September despite proclaiming the annexation of four regions it partly occupies. Putin has ordered the central government and the country's 80-plus regions to work more effectively together to support the military's needs.
The 2023 budget will see spending on the "national economy" — including roads, agriculture and research and development — fall by 23 per cent. Health care is to get nine per cent less, while education spending will be cut by two per cent.
While his country cuts back on funding for its people, Russian President Vladimir Putin will in the coming days meet the mothers of reservists called up to fight in Ukraine, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.
Russia celebrates Mother's Day on Nov. 27.
A Kremlin spokesperson said Putin will receive "first-hand information about the real state of affairs."
