Ukrainian electricity provider Ukrenerho warned of blackouts and other restrictions on July 1 because of the effects of Russia’s ongoing campaign of attacks targeting energy infrastructure combined with increased demand due to high summer temperatures.
The warning came as Ukraine’s Air Force issued a missile and air-raid alert for most regions of Ukraine, including the capital, Kyiv, and after at least seven civilians were injured during an overnight Russian drone strike in the eastern city of Dnipro.
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In the Kyiv region, three people, including a child, were reportedly injured in a rocket strike that damaged three private houses and several vehicles, officials reported late on June 30.
Noting that temperatures in most of the country were forecast to be above 30 degrees Celsius on July 1, the company urged Ukrainians to monitor consumption and avoid using demanding appliances simultaneously.
The company added that Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, and Moldova were providing electricity supplies to Ukraine.
“But due to the scale of the damage [from the Russian attacks], these measures are not enough to maintain the balance in the energy system,” Ukrenerho wrote on Telegram.
Russia has been targeting Ukraine’s electrical grid for months, forcing frequent power outages. In March, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said 80 percent of the country’s thermal-generation capacity had been destroyed. Around the same time, the Energy Ministry said thermal power plants controlled by Tsentroenerho and Ukrhydroenerho had been badly damaged.
Last month, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy asked the European Union to step up electricity exports to Ukraine, as well as to supply necessary equipment and other resources to make repairs.
“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin is waging a full-scale war against our energy sector,” Zelenskiy said at a meeting of the European Council in Brussels on June 27. “If Russia succeeds in this, it will become part of military doctrines around the world. Energy is one of the foundations of normal human life.”
On June 23, Russia conducted its eighth large-scale strike targeting Ukraine’s energy grid in the past three months. The strikes damaged power transmission systems in the southeastern Zaporizhzhya and western Lviv regions, Ukrenerho said at the time.
Meanwhile, the administration of Belgorod, a Russian city of some 340,000 located 40 kilometers of the Ukrainian border, reported that electricity had been cut off in several areas of the city and the surrounding region as a result of Ukrainian drone attacks.
Telegram channel Ash said the reason for the power outage was an attack on a substation.
The Russian Defense Ministry said separately that Russian air-defense systems had downed 36 drones over the the Bryansk, Kursk, and Belgorod regions early on July 1.
The ministry claimed its air-defense systems “destroyed and suppressed” 18 drones over the Bryansk region and nine drones each over the Kursk and Belgorod regions.
The claim could not be independently verified immediately.
Ukraine has over the past several months increasingly targeted fuel-production sites inside Russia, mainly oil-refining facilities that work for the Russian military.