KYIV: Power was restored to over 800,000 residents in Kyiv on Saturday, a day after Russia launched major attacks on the Ukrainian power grid that caused blackouts across much of the country, and European leaders agreed to proceed toward using hundreds of billions of frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine’s war effort.
Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said “the main work to restore the power supply” had been completed, but that some localized outages were still affecting the Ukrainian capital following Friday’s “massive” Russian attacks.
Russian drone and missile strikes wounded at least 20 people in Kyiv, damaged residential buildings and triggered blackouts across swaths of Ukraine early Friday.
Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko described the attack as “one of the largest concentrated strikes” against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Russia’s Defense Ministry on Friday said the strikes had targeted energy facilities supplying Ukraine’s military. It did not give details of those facilities, but said Russian forces used Kinzhal hypersonic missiles and strike drones against them.
Ukraine’s air force said Saturday that its air defenses intercepted or jammed 54 of 78 Russian drones launched against Ukraine overnight, while Russia’s defense ministry said it had shot down 42 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory.
At least two people were killed and five wounded in airstrikes on Kostiantynivka, a city in Ukraine’s Donetsk region Saturday, regional Gov. Vadim Filashkin said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that he had a “very positive and productive” phone call with US President Donald Trump.
In a post on X, Zelensky said he told Trump about Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy system, and that the two discussed opportunities to strengthen Ukraine’s air defense. “There needs to be readiness on the Russian side to engage in real diplomacy — this can be achieved through strength,” Zelensky wrote.
Ukraine’s energy sector has been a key battleground since Russia launched its all-out invasion more than three years ago.
Each year, Russia has tried to cripple the Ukrainian power grid before the bitter winter season, apparently hoping to erode public morale. Winter temperatures run from late October through March, with January and February the coldest months.
Zelensky said in his nightly address Friday that Russia was taking advantage of the world being “almost entirely focused on the prospect of establishing peace in the Middle East,” and called for strengthening Ukraine’s air defense systems and tighter sanctions on Russia.
“Russian assets must be fully used to strengthen our defense and ensure recovery,” he said in the video, posted to X.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in a joint statement on Friday they were ready to move toward using “in a coordinated way, the value of the immobilized Russian sovereign assets to support Ukraine’s armed forces and thus bring Russia to the negotiation table.”
The statement added they aimed to do this “in close cooperation with the United States.”
Ukraine’s budget and military needs for 2026 and 2027 are estimated to total around 130 billion euros ($153 billion). The European Union has already poured in 174 billion euros (about $202 billion) since the war started in February 2022.
The biggest pot of ready funds available is through frozen Russian assets, most of which is held in Belgium — around 194 billion euros ($225 billion) as of June – and outside the EU in Japan, with around $50 billion, and the US, the United Kingdom and Canada with lesser amounts.
Power restored to 800,000 in Kyiv after major Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy grid
https://arab.news/by2hn
Power restored to 800,000 in Kyiv after major Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy grid
- DTEK, said “the main work to restore the power supply” had been completed
- Svyrydenko described the attack as “one of the largest concentrated strikes” against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure
Archbishop of York says he was ‘intimidated’ by Israeli militias during West Bank visit
- “We were … intimidated by Israeli militias who told us that we couldn’t visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank,” the archbishop said
LONDON: The Archbishop of York has revealed that he felt “intimidated” by Israeli militias during a visit to the Holy Land this year.
“We were stopped at various checkpoints and intimidated by Israeli militias who told us that we couldn’t visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank,” the Rev. Stephen Cottrell told his Christmas Day congregation at York Minster.
The archbishop added: “We have become — and really, I can think of no other way of putting it — we have become fearful of each other, and especially fearful of strangers, or just people who aren’t quite like us.
“We don’t seem to be able to see ourselves in them, and therefore we spurn our common humanity.”
He recounted how YMCA charity representatives in Bethlehem, who work with persecuted Palestinian communities in the West Bank, gave him an olive wood Nativity scene carving.
The carving depicted a “large gray wall” blocking the three kings from getting to the stable to see Mary, Joseph and Jesus, he said.
He said it was sobering for him to see the wall in real life during his visit.
He continued: “But this Christmas morning here in York, as well as thinking about the walls that divide and separate the Holy Land, I’m also thinking of all the walls and barriers we erect across the whole of the world and, perhaps most alarming, the ones we build around ourselves, the ones we construct in our hearts and minds, and of how our fearful shielding of ourselves from strangers — the strangers we encounter in the homeless on our streets, refugees seeking asylum, young people starved of opportunity and growing up without hope for the future — means that we are in danger of failing to welcome Christ when he comes.”
