In the middle of winter, Ukraine has imposed emergency power outages in several regions due to damage to the energy grid from Russian drone attacks, the state energy supplier Ukrenergo said on Friday.
There are electricity shortages in the eastern Kharkiv region as well as in central Poltava and Kirovohrad. Authorities are prioritizing power cuts for commercial consumers over private households, it said.
Ukrenergo said the move was needed due to Russian rocket and drone attacks on power generation and transmission facilities. No details were given regarding the location or extent of the damage.
IAEA’s Grossi worried about fighting near Zaporizhzhya
Meanwhile in Moscow, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Friday that he is concerned about the increasing number of attacks around the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.
“The security situation remains very difficult,” said Rafael Grossi. “Moreover, we have been witnessing increasingly frequent attacks [on the nuclear facility], the IAEA chief said.
Grossi made his comments after a meeting with the head of the Russian atomic agency Rosatom, Alexei Likhachev, in Moscow, according to the Interfax news agency.
Grossi did not want to comment on who was responsible for the attacks on the nuclear facility. International nuclear observers stationed there would not be able to tell from the drone debris, he said.
Still, Grossi said that that such questions would be addressed at the top level in international meetings.
Before his visit to Moscow, Grossi was also in Ukraine, where he warned of the danger of a nuclear accident due to Russia’s constant attacks on Ukraine’s power grid.
The nuclear power plant in the Zaporizhzhya region was occupied by Russian troops shortly after the war began nearly three years ago. Several attempts by Kiev to retake the plant have failed.
Ukrainian and Russian troops repeatedly blame each other for shelling the plant, which is located in the immediate vicinity of the front line. The six reactor units have been shut down, but still need to be cooled.
Russia’s FSB arrests four it says worked for Ukraine
Separately, the FSB, Russia’s domestic secret service, said on Friday that it has detained four women in Russia and on the annexed peninsula of Crimea, accusing them of collaborating with Ukrainian intelligence.
The agency said they were recruited by Ukrainian secret services to carry out attacks on high-ranking officers of the Russian Defence Ministry and on fuel and energy sector targets.
The women allegedly received weapons training in Ukraine, the surveillance agency said.
Claims repeatedly made by the FSB alleging the discovery of Ukrainian plots or acts of sabotage cannot be independently verified.
Explosives, electronic detonators, instructions for building bombs and means of communication to Kiev were seized at the women’s places of residence, the FSB said.
They face up to 30 years in prison.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion in February 2022, there have been cases in Russia of sabotage on railway lines and other objects, but also targeted assassinations of war supporters.
