Water supply and metro services restored in Kyiv but many remain without heat after missile attacks
A woman crosses the street during snowfall
By Olga Voitovych and Sophie Tanno, CNN
Water supply and metro services have been restored in Kyiv but officials continued to work Saturday to return heating to all the Ukrainian capital’s residents, a day after a barrage of Russian missiles targeted the city.
“Water supply has been restored to all residents of the capital. Half of Kyiv residents already have heating and we are working to restore it to all residents of the city,” the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a post on Telegram on Saturday.
Klitschko also said that electricity had been returned to two-thirds of Kyiv residents.
“Power supply is now available to two-thirds of Kyiv residents. But the schedules of emergency power outages are still applied. Because the shortage of electricity is significant. Power engineers ask to continue to save electricity,” Klitschko added.
A fresh barrage of Russian missile attacks across Ukraine on Friday morning put the entire country under air-raid alarm. People scrambled for shelter as explosions sounded overhead, with strikes hitting critical infrastructure and knocking out power.
In Kyiv, Klitschko reported explosions in the capital’s Desniansky district.
CNN teams in Kyiv reported hearing blasts Friday, as well as seeing and hearing missiles. They also heard the air defense systems working in the Ukrainian capital.
In the central city of Kryvyi Rih, rescuers have pulled the body of an 18-month-old boy from the rubble of an apartment block which was destroyed by a Russian missile on Friday, Valentyn Reznichenko, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, said Saturday on Telegram.
The boy’s parents and a 64-year-old woman were also killed, according to local officials. Another 13 people, including four children, were injured, Reznichenko said.
More than 100 people lived in the apartment block that was struck, according to Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the Kryvyi Rih city military administration. They and residents of neighboring homes which also suffered damage are being looked after in a temporary accommodation, he said Friday.
In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, Oleh Syniehubv, head of the regional military administration, said “critical infrastructure facilities” were hit in Chuhuiv district on Friday.
Sections of the Ukrainian railway system in Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk region were out of power following the missile strikes, and back-up diesel locomotives were replacing some services.
Ukraine’s energy minister, Herman Halushchenko, said that nine power-generating facitilites were damaged in Friday’s attacks, and warned of more emergency blackouts.
Russia’s persistent and pervasive attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid have, at least temporarily, left millions of civilians without electricity, heat, water and other critical services in the bitter winter months.
Repeated missile and drone attacks since October, which have damaged or destroyed civilian infrastructure, are part of a strategy by the Kremlin to terrorize Ukrainians and are in violation of the laws of war, according to experts.
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CNN’s Olga Voitovych reported from Kyiv and Sophie Tanno wrote from London. CNN’s Eliza Macintosh and Amy Cassidy contributed reporting.
