UkrainE: All non-critical infrastructure in the Ukrainian port of Odesa was without power after Russia used Iranian-made drones to hit two energy facilities, leaving 1.5 million people without power, officials said. “The situation in the Odesa region is very difficult,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. “Unfortunately, the hits were critical, so it takes more than just time to restore electricity … It doesn’t take hours, but a few days, unfortunately.”

Since October, Moscow has been targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with large waves of missile and drone strikes. Norway was sending $100 million to help restore Ukraine’s energy system, Zelenskiy said. Serhiy Bratchuk, the spokesperson for Odesa’s regional administration, said electricity for the city’s population will be restored “in the coming days”, while complete restoration of the networks may take two to three months. Bratchuk said an earlier Facebook post by the region’s administration, advising some people to consider evacuating, was being investigated by Ukraine’s security services as “an element of the hybrid war” by Russia.

That post has since been deleted.

Published in The Daily National Courier, December, 12 2022

Like Business on Facebook, follow @DailyNCourier on Twitter to stay informed and join in the conversation.