Ukraine: Blackouts back in Kyiv as war takes multiple fronts

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian authorities on Friday announced further rolling blackouts in and around the country’s largest cities amid ongoing Russian strikes targeting energy infrastructure.

The press service of Ukrenergo, the sole operator of Ukraine’s high-voltage transmission lines, said in a statement that “emergency outages” of four hours a day or more had resumed in the Kyiv region.

The capital region's governor, Oleksiy Kuleba, said on Telegram on Friday that residents could expect to see “tougher and longer” power outages compared to earlier in the war.

Oleg Syniehubov, the governor of the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine, announced on Telegram that daily one-hour power outages would begin Monday across the province, including the regional capital, which is Ukraine’s second-largest city.

He said the measures “are necessary to stabilize the power grid, because the enemy continues shelling (Ukraine’s) energy infrastructure.”

Officials across the country have urged people to conserve energy by reducing their electricity consumption during peak hours and avoiding the use of high-voltage appliances.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week said that 30% of Ukraine’s power stations had been destroyed since Russia launched the first wave of targeted infrastructure strikes on Oct. 10.

Russian missile and artillery barrages killed at least four people and wounded 10 others in 24 hours, most of them in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk province, the country's presidential office said Friday. Russian forces were gearing up for an assault on Bakhut following a string of setbacks in the east.

Russian fire struck several towns across the Dnieper River from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the presidential office said. Shelling damaged dozens of...