KYIV: Ukraine began curbing electricity consumption on Thursday as it raced to carry out repairs on infrastructure destroyed by Russian bombing as winter approaches.
Energy-saving measures were put in place across the country after Russian missile and drone strikes destroyed at least 30 percent of the country’s power stations in a week.
Following blackouts in parts of the capital Kyiv overnight, the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko urged businesses to limit screens and signage lights “as much as possible.”
“Even small savings and a reduction in electricity consumption in every home will help stabilize the operation of the national energy system,” he said on social media.
Ukrainians have responded defiantly to the attacks.
“It’s not going to change our attitude, maybe we will only hate them more,” said Olga, 22, a resident of Dnipro in central Ukraine.
“I would rather sit in the cold, with no water and electricity than be in Russia,” she said.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February and quickly seized more than 20 percent of the country but has lost ground after a series of battlefield defeats in recent weeks.
Moscow has retaliated by annexing the areas it holds and launching a wave of strikes on energy facilities, including with what Kyiv and Western powers said are Iranian drones.
Russia and Iran have denied the use of such drones in Ukraine but the EU on Thursday imposed sanctions on three Iranian generals and an arms firm accused of supplying them.
“This is our clear response to the Iranian regime providing Russia with drones, which it uses to murder innocent Ukrainian citizens,” Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala tweeted.
Russian foreign ministry spokesman said the West was seeking to put “pressure” on Tehran, while Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba welcomed the “prompt action” from Brussels.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Russia’s “scorched earth” attacks only strengthened the Western alliance against Moscow.
But Russian lawmaker Andrey Gurulev told state television the attacks were “extremely effective” and would “collapse” Ukraine.
In his nightly address Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of energy “terror.”
After a meeting with energy companies, he said preparations were under way “for all possible scenarios with a view to winter.”
The government was “working on the creation of mobile power supply points for critical infrastructure,” he added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin also on Wednesday declared martial law in four annexed areas and heightened security in Russian regions bordering Ukraine.
The move came after Kremlin proxies in the Russian-occupied Kherson region in southern Ukraine said they were leaving the area in the face of a Ukrainian counter-offensive.
Moscow-installed officials also said they would be organizing an “evacuation” of tens of thousands of civilians from the area.
The region’s main city, also called Kherson, has been in Moscow’s hands since the earliest days of the invasion.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, denounced Moscow’s move as criminal.
“Putin’s martial law in the annexed regions of Ukraine is preparation for the mass deportation of the Ukrainian population to depressed areas of Russia in order to change the ethnic composition of the occupied territory,” Danilov said.
Pro-Russian officials in the town of Oleshky across the Dnieper said residents from Kherson city were already arriving.
Russia’s Rossiya 24 TV showed images of people waiting to board ferries, unable to use bridges damaged by Ukraine.
Ukraine’s resilience has won plaudits internationally and the European Parliament on Wednesday awarded the annual Sakharov Prize for human rights to “brave” Ukrainians.
The award was welcomed by Natalya Boykiv, an engineer, walking in Kyiv city center.
“We deserve it,” said.
“The world should see who Ukrainians are. Thanks to this we attract the world’s attention,” the 24-year-old added.
Meanwhile, in parts of Ukraine recently recaptured from Russian forces, repairs were under way before the onset of winter. Many residents there are still depending on humanitarian aid.
“Apart from this, nothing is working,” said Ivan Zakharchenko, a 70-year-old resident of Izyum queueing for aid in the square where Zelensky celebrated the town’s liberation just over a month ago.
Ukraine curbs electricity use after Russian strikes
https://arab.news/zw4p6
Ukraine curbs electricity use after Russian strikes
- Energy-saving measures were put in place across the country after Russian missile and drone strikes
- Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko urged businesses to limit screens and signage lights "as much as possible"
Venezuela parliament unanimously approves amnesty law
CARACAS: Venezuela’s National Assembly on Thursday unanimously approved a long-awaited amnesty law that could free hundreds of political prisoners jailed for being government detractors.
But the law excludes those who have been prosecuted or convicted of promoting military action against the country — which could include opposition leaders like Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, who has been accused by the ruling party of calling for international intervention like the one that ousted former president Nicolas Maduro.
The bill now goes before interim president Delcy Rodriguez, who pushed for the legislation under pressure from Washington, after she rose to power following Maduro’s capture during a US military raid on January 3.
The law is meant to apply retroactively to 1999 — including the coup against previous leader Hugo Chavez, the 2002 oil strike, and the 2024 riots against Maduro’s disputed reelection — giving hope to families that loved ones will finally come home.
Some fear, however, the law could be used by the government to pardon its own and selectively deny freedom to real prisoners of conscience.
Article 9 of the bill lists those excluded from amnesty as “persons who are being prosecuted or may be convicted for promoting, instigating, soliciting, invoking, favoring, facilitating, financing or participating in armed actions or the use of force against the people, sovereignty, and territorial integrity” of Venezuela “by foreign states, corporations or individuals.”
Venezuela’s National Assembly had delayed several sittings meant to pass the amnesty bill.
“The scope of the law must be restricted to victims of human rights violations and expressly exclude those accused of serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity, including state, paramilitary and non-state actors,” UN human rights experts said in a statement from Geneva Thursday.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Venezuelans have been jailed in recent years over plots, real or imagined, to overthrow the government of Rodriguez’s predecessor and former boss Maduro, who was in the end toppled in the deadly US military raid.
Family members have reported torture, maltreatment and untreated health problems among the inmates.
The NGO Foro Penal says about 450 prisoners have been released since Maduro’s ouster, but more than 600 others remain behind bars.
Family members have been clamoring for their release for weeks, holding vigils outside prisons.
One small group, in the capital Caracas, staged a nearly weeklong hunger strike which ended Thursday.
“The National Assembly has the opportunity to show whether there truly is a genuine will for national reconciliation,” Foro Penal director Gonzalo Himiob wrote on X Thursday ahead of the vote.
On Wednesday, the chief of the US military command responsible for strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats off South America held talks in Caracas with Rodriguez and top ministers Vladimir Padrino and Diosdado Cabello .
All three were staunch Maduro backers who for years echoed his “anti-imperialist” rhetoric.
Rodriguez’s interim government has been governing with US President Donald Trump’s consent, provided she grants access to Venezuela’s vast oil resources.
