KYIV: As Russian attacks damaged half of the country's energy capacity, Ukrainians braced for winter with little or no electricity in numerous locations, including Kyiv, where temperatures have already plummeted below freezing.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy asked people to save energy, especially in hard-hit areas like Kyiv, Vinnytsia in the southwest, Sumy in the north, and Odesa in the Black Sea.

Zelenskiy said that half of the nation's electricity capacity had been destroyed by Russian rockets as a result of Moscow's onslaught of missile attacks against power facilities in retaliation for military failures in recent weeks.

Zelenskiy stated in his nightly video message that "all of our citizens and businesses should be careful and redistribute their consumption throughout the day" due to the systematic damage that Russian terrorist attacks have caused to our energy grid. "Try to reduce the amount of power you use personally."

Blackouts are expected to be a regular occurrence in Ukraine for millions of people at least through the end of March, according to the head of a major energy provider.

Sergey Kovalenko, the head of YASNO, which provides energy for Kyiv, said workers are rushing to complete repairs before the winter cold arrives.
"Stock up on warm clothes and blankets; consider options to help you wait out a long outage," Kovalenko advised."It's better to do it now than to be miserable."

Citizens in the recently liberated southern city of Kherson, where Kyiv says Russian troops destroyed critical infrastructure before leaving earlier this month, can apply to be relocated to areas where security and heating issues are less acute.

Ukraine's deputy prime minister urges residents of Kherson to leave the region, citing security and infrastructure problems. Residents can express interest in leaving in a number of ways on a government-run social media site. Moscow blames Kyiv for the blackouts and Russia's strikes on energy infrastructure, according to a state media report. Kyiv and the West describe Russia's actions as an unprovoked war of aggression.

The Ukrainian military said late on Monday that Russian forces have tried to make advances around Bakhmut and Avdiivka in Donetsk and bombarded nearby towns. Moscow has been reinforcing the areas it still holds and pressing an offensive of its own along a stretch of the front line west of the city of Donetsk.

Ukraine narrowly escaped disaster during fighting at the weekend that rocked the plant, Europe's largest. The plant is across the Dnipro River from areas controlled by Kyiv. It has been under Russian control since soon after it invaded the country on Feb. 24. Some shell fragments fell near reactors and damaged a radioactive waste storage building.

There is a risk that nuclear fuel could overheat if the power driving the cooling systems is cut. Russia's defense ministry says Ukraine fired at power lines supplying the plant, which it says were downed by Russian missiles.

The Ukrainian nuclear energy firm Energoatom has accused Russia of shelling its plant in the east of the country, accusing it of nuclear blackmail. Repeated shelling of the plant during Ukraine's civil war has raised concern about a possible nuclear disaster. The area suffered the world's worst nuclear accident, the 1986 Chornobyl meltdown.