According to DTEK, the power cuts in Kyiv should not last longer than four hours, but the utility has not completely ruled out extensions. The power cuts would be introduced “to prevent accidents,” explained DTEK.
According to the Ukrainian President, Russia had again hit Ukraine on Saturday night with “massive” rocket attacks. “The aggressor continues to terrorize our country,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in the online networks. Russia fired 35 missiles. According to the Presidential Office, more than a million households were without electricity.
As the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Sunday, the Russian army also destroyed a fuel depot in the Cherkasy region in central Ukraine “which housed more than 100,000 tons of aviation fuel for the Ukrainian air force”. According to this, several ammunition depots and a petrol reservoir for Ukrainian military vehicles were also damaged.
Meanwhile, Russian Defense Minister Shoigu held a phone call on Sunday with the defense ministers of France, Turkey and Great Britain about the situation in Ukraine. As his ministry announced, Schoigu first spoke to French Minister Sébastien Lecornu about the situation, “which has a constant tendency towards further, uncontrolled escalation”.
Shoigu later telephoned the Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar. In both phone calls, he expressed his concern that Ukraine could use a so-called “dirty bomb” – a conventional explosive device that spreads radioactive material into the area when it explodes. He finally brought this up in conversation with British Defense Minister Ben Wallace, according to a further statement by the Russian Defense Ministry.
The day before, the pro-Russian authorities had called on all civilians to leave the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson “immediately” in view of the advance of Kiev’s armed forces in southern Ukraine. According to their own statements, local authorities are also preparing for attacks in the Russian border area with Ukraine. Two “reinforced defense lines” were completed in the Kursk region this week, local governor Roman Starovoit said on Sunday in the online service Telegram.
These defensive structures appear to consist of a series of bunkers where soldiers can store ammunition and fire from narrow slots, according to photos released by Starowoit. “We are ready to ward off any encroachment on our territory,” the governor said.
The governor of the neighboring Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, also announced on Telegram on Saturday that the construction of defense structures had begun in the region. According to local authorities, two people were killed in Ukrainian attacks in the city of Schebekino in Belgorod on Saturday. Russia had reported increased Ukrainian shelling of areas on the border this month.
