DDespite massive Russian airstrikes on power plants and other infrastructure, the Ukraine shows an unbroken will to fight. “Russian troops continue to attack our power plants with missiles and drones. In the end, even such Russian meanness will fail, ”said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his evening video address on Thursday. Russia wants to destroy Ukraine’s energy system and make the neighboring country suffer even more. “But this only mobilizes the international community to help us even more and to put even more pressure on the terrorist state,” stressed the President.
Ukrainian utility company Ukrenerho announced in the evening that it expects temporary restrictions on energy consumption on Friday as a result of the damaged facilities across the country. The company was forced to cut power as early as Thursday. The adviser in the President’s Office in Kyiv, Oleksiy Arestovych, did not rule out long-term problems. “We can certainly face a situation in which we will be stuck for weeks or even months without water, without light and heat or with major restrictions.” But he is sure that the Ukrainians will overcome the problems.
UNHCR plans winter relief
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) wants to help displaced people and people living in homes in Ukraine that have been severely damaged by the war to get through the cold winter months in good health. “We have converted 390 public buildings in Ukraine so that there are now 109,000 sleeping places,” said Deputy UN High Commissioner for Refugees Kelly Clements of the German Press Agency in Berlin. These are mostly schools or gyms.
Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Moldova also need further support in caring for Ukrainian refugees, explained Clements, who was in the Bundestag and the Foreign Office for talks this week. “What concerns us most at the moment is the cold,” she said.
At the EU summit in Brussels, Selenskyj thanked Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) for the delivery of the Iris-T air defense system in a video speech. “This German system not only shields Ukrainian airspace. It protects European stability by containing Russian terror, which hits both our country and your countries in the future,” Zelenskyi told the heads of state and government of the 27 EU countries. The first system was handed over to Ukraine a week ago. The Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov had spoken of a “new era of air defense”.
Putin shows up with recruits
In Russia, Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin had himself filmed for the first time shooting with a sniper rifle at a military training area almost eight months after the start of the war in Ukraine. State television showed on Thursday how the commander-in-chief, lying under a camouflage net, fired the Dragunov-type weapon. He then spoke to soldiers in the Ryazan area, about 200 kilometers south-east of Moscow. Together with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Putin also demonstratively checked the equipment of the fighters in front of the camera. The visit came amid criticism of poor preparation of Russian soldiers for the war in Ukraine.
