More than 500 Ukrainian towns were still without power on Sunday after Russian shelling in recent weeks heavily damaged the country’s power grid, an Interior Ministry official said.
"The enemy continues to attack the country’s essential infrastructure. Currently, 507 towns in eight regions of our country are without electricity supply"Yevgeniy Yenin, First Deputy Minister of the Interior, told Ukrainian television.
In detail, "the Kharkov region is the most affected, with 112 isolated villages; in the Donetsk and Kherson regions more than 90; the Mykolaiv region 82; Zaporizhia region 76; the Lugansk region 43"listed.
The Ukrainian authorities urged the population on Saturday "endure" despite deteriorating living conditions.
"we have to hold on", said the governor of the southern region of Mykolaiv, Vitaliy Kim. Several times a day Ukrainians are left without electricity and heating, which is hard to bear as the temperatures have been negative for a few days.
The prospect of new Russian bombardments against the Ukrainian energy network raises fears of a particularly difficult winter for the population and a new wave of civilians seeking refuge outside the country.