Two days after missile attacks, Kyivites cheered and sang patriotic songs with the return of electricity to most homes and residences on Friday.
Residents of Kyiv’s Desniansky district, on the left bank of the Dnipro River, recorded a party atmosphere in their courtyards after lights came back on late Thursday night.
Ukrainian authorities had struggled to repair the power grid in the capital following bruising Russian missile strikes on Wednesday, Nov. 23. Some districts of the city were without power for 36 hours. In the western city of Lviv, during a 30-hour black-out, local doctors performed nine organ transplant operations in hospitals lit only by emergency generators, the UNIAN news agency.
The national energy company Ukrenergo said that by Friday mid-afternoon power was restored to practically all regions of the country, but capacity was low and planned black-outs, a regular feature of Ukrainian life since Russia started bombarding Ukraine’s power grid in early October, will continue. Ukraine’s power grid currently is only able to meet 70 percent of demand, a company statement said.
Kyivites with few exceptions have had access to electricity on average for about 12-14 hours a day, with automatic shutdowns turning electric appliances and heaters off at four-hour intervals. In the Desniansky district the lights were turned on for about a half hour, before being shut down again.
Ukrenergo said technicians were working 24/7 to increase power grid capacity. Russia’s missile strikes have concentrated on power generation plants and transmission substations sometimes servicing tens of thousands of electricity users.
Black Friday for Ukraine and the World
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