Kyiv’s entire water system was shut off on Friday morning after major Russian strikes targeted the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
“Due to damage to the energy infrastructure, there are interruptions in water supply in all districts of the capital,” Kiltschko wrote on Telegram, advising residents to “prepare a supply” of water and “stay in shelters.”
While subway traffic has been stopped in Kyiv, underground metro stations continue to work as shelters, the mayor said.
“Internet connection, electricity for recharging gadgets, drinking water and sanitary facilities will be available at the underground stations,” Kiltschko said, adding that locals should wear “winter clothes and have extra warm clothes.”
Several cities in eastern Ukraine were also struck on Friday.
An “infrastructure facility” was hit in Kharkiv in the northeast, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram, adding that the city was without electricity.
Two people died and “at least five injured, including two children” after a “Russian missile hit a residential building in Kryvyi Rih,” the region’s governor Valentyn Reznichenko said.
At 12:29 p.m. local time (11:29 a.m. CET), air raid alerts had been lifted in most of the country, according to an alert map published on Twitter.
Russia has been increasingly shelling Ukrainian energy infrastructure in recent weeks, prompting Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy to state it was using winter as a “weapon of mass destruction.”
In mid-October, Zelenskyy reported that “thirty per cent” of Ukraine’s power stations had been destroyed in one week.
In November, large parts of the country, including Kyiv, were left in the dark after Russian strikes.
