Kyiv

Hours after videos purportedly showing Ukrainian military shooting unarmed "Russian Prisoners of War" went viral on social media, authorities in Kyiv said that the capital is in a "critical situation" with power shortages and subsequent blackouts.

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At the onset of winter, heavy artillery and missile fire have interrupted electricity supplies to as much as 40 per cent of Ukraine, Associated Press reported. Ukraine’s electricity grid chief said freezing temperatures were putting additional pressure on energy networks.

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"We need to prepare for possible long outages, but at the moment we are introducing schedules that are planned and will do everything to ensure that the outages are not very long," Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, Ukrenergo’s chief executive, told Ukrainian state television.

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The capital of Kyiv is already facing a “huge deficit in electricity”, mayor Vitali Klitschko told Associated Press. 

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Meanwhile, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the area around the Black Sea port of Odesa and more than a dozen other regions are grappling with power shortages following relentless Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, Ukrainian president  Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

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"The situation with power supplies is difficult in 17 regions and in the capital. Things are very difficult in Kyiv region and the city of Kyiv, Odesa region and also Vynnitsia and Ternopil (areas in western and south-western Ukraine)," the Ukrainian president said on Friday in his nightly video address.

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Kyiv is the largest city in Ukraine, with an estimated population of about 3 million. Odesa, the nucleus of Ukraine’s agriculture exports, is the third most populous city, with about 1 million people.

With temperatures falling and Kyiv witnessing its first winter snow, officials were working to restore power nationwide amid heavy bombardments of the war on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure during the past month.

(With inputs from agencies)

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