Photo: Collected
Russian strikes on Ukraine's energy facilities have destroyed half of its electricity generation capacity since winter, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday (11 June).
Months of Russian strikes have caused severe energy shortages in Ukraine, leading to scheduled power outages and blackouts.
"As a result of the strikes of Russian missiles and drones, nine gigawatts of capacity have already been destroyed. The peak of electricity consumption last winter was 18 gigawatts. So half now doesn't exist," Zelensky told a conference in Berlin.
Zelensky also urged allies to supply more air defence systems, saying: "It is missile and bomb terror that helps Russian troops advance on the ground."
"Air defence is the answer," he said.
Ukraine's state power operator said it was extending scheduled outages around the country because of increased consumption.The company had announced outages on Monday between 4-10:00 pm and had said there would be outages on Tuesday between 2-7:00pm.
Zelensky said the strikes showed Russian President Vladimir Putin was trying to "hone the practice of destroying energy facilities" including connections between the Ukrainian and European energy systems.
"We are dealing with an absolutely unprecedented scale of destruction," he said, adding that the capacity of thermal power plants was at a "historic" low with "virtually no hydroelectric power plant that has not been damaged."
Asked whether Ukrainian energy facilities constituted legitimate military targets, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "Without a doubt, in concrete cases this has to do with military infrastructure".
Messenger/Sourov
