Ukraine to restrict electricity supplies as Russia knocks out more power plants

Kyiv: Ukrainian energy officials said on Wednesday they had no choice but to introduce restrictions on electricity supplies across the country and scheduled blackouts nationwide after losing at least 40 per cent of the country's power generating capacity following days of Russian attacks.

"Unfortunately, according to new data, about 40 pc of the total infrastructure and our generating capacities are really seriously damaged," said Oleksandr Kharchenko, an advisor to Ukraine's energy minister, reported CNN. "Restoration and repair work is ongoing, but miracles are possible only to a certain extent," Kharchenko said in the statement broadcast on national television.

"Therefore, we should expect not only emergency but also scheduled outages today and tomorrow in order not to overload the grid," he added.

NPC Ukrenergo, Ukraine's national energy company called for the "understanding and support" of its energy users as they have been forced to introduce consumption restrictions following the missile attacks, reported CNN.

Ukrenergo said the "consumption restrictions may be applied throughout Ukraine from 7:00 am to 22:00 pm" Thursday.

"The outages will be alternate -- the duration of the outage is also determined by the regional power distribution company, but not more than 4 hours," the statement said.

"The enemy, who cannot compete with the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the battlefield, attacked the civilian energy infrastructure again. Therefore, tomorrow we will apply controlled and carefully calculated restrictions to consumers, which we must implement to make the system work in a balanced way," the power company said.

Ukraine suffered new damage to its critical energy infrastructure, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address, reported CNN.

"Of course, we will do everything possible to restore the normal energy capabilities of our country. But this requires time and our combined effort," he said.

Zelenskyy appealed to Ukrainians to become careful about electricity consumption starting on Thursday from 7:00 a.m. local time, reported CNN.

"Please do not turn on unnecessary electrical appliances. Please limit electricity consumption on those appliances that require a lot of energy," the president said, "Tomorrow it is very important that consumption is as conscious as possible. Then the schedules of stabilization outages will be shorter."

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law Wednesday introducing martial law in four Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims to have annexed in defiance of international law: Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk.