Ukraine urges refugees not to return in winter due to power shortages
Lviv, Ukraine Oct 25 (EFE).- Ukrainian authorities on Tuesday urged citizens who fled the country due to the war not to return during the winter because of the damage to Ukraine’s electricity and heating supply.
“If the opportunity arises, stay and spend the winter abroad,” deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
“You see what Russia is doing, everyone sees it,” she added. “We understand that the situation will get worse and we have to survive this winter.”
Ukrenergo, the state-owned grid operator, has limited the consumption of electricity for industrial consumers throughout Ukraine to avoid a circuit overload.
“In order to stabilize the operation of the power system, the control center of Ukrenergo forcibly applied restriction schedules for industrial and other categories of consumers in all regions of Ukraine,” Ukrenergo said in a statement.
“Forced restrictions of electricity consumers are a fully controlled measure that allows reducing the load on the power grid and makes it possible to balance the operation of the power system,” it added.
More than 400 facilities in 16 regions have been destroyed amid Russian missile and drone attacks between October 10 and 20.
According to Ukrainian prosecutor general Andriy Kostin, Russia has launched 85 attacks on power plants since the start of the invasion in February, 51 of them in October alone.
Around 40% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has been severely damaged. EFE
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