The Russian missile and drone attacks on Kyiv came during the coldest winter in years and caused widespread disruptions to heating, electricity and water supplies. The critical state of infrastructure has prompted the capital's mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko, to declare a real threat of a humanitarian catastrophe and urge residents who can to temporarily leave the city.
Klitschko said this in an interview with the British publication The Times. According to him, about 600,000 people have already left Kyiv in January alone. Currently, the capital has a population of over three million, but living conditions for many of them are rapidly deteriorating.
The mayor noted that thousands of apartment buildings were left without heating as a result of Russian strikes. Due to extremely low temperatures and the threat of burst pipes, utilities had to drain water from a large centralized heating system to avoid even more extensive damage.
"We are dealing not just with damage to infrastructure, but with a direct threat to people's normal lives," Klitschko emphasized.
According to him, Kyiv has been in a mode of periodic power outages and minimal heating since January 9, the date of Russia's previous massive strike, which coincided with the beginning of the coldest winter period in the last ten years.
On the night of January 20, Russian troops carried out another large-scale shelling of Ukraine. According to available information, the occupiers used one Zircon anti-ship missile, 18 Iskander-M/S-300 ballistic missiles, 15 Kh-101 cruise missiles, and 339 strike drones. These attacks virtually destroyed the results of repair work on energy facilities carried out after the previous shelling.
Klitschko said that both of the latest ballistic missile strikes hit a thermal power plant in Kyiv. As a result, in some areas the temperature in apartments has dropped so much that residents cannot use the bathrooms due to frozen water. Icicles of condensation are forming on the windows, indicating a critical level of cold in the apartments.
The mayor of the capital emphasized that Russia is purposefully attacking the city's energy and heating infrastructure, trying to deprive Kyiv of the opportunity to survive the winter normally.
"The Russians want to cause a humanitarian catastrophe in our hometown so that people freeze in the winter," Vitaliy Klitschko said.
In this regard, he called on Kyiv residents who have the opportunity to travel to other regions or abroad to temporarily leave the capital until the situation with heat and energy supply stabilizes.
