More than 6 million families in Ukraine are still affected by power outagesPresident Volodymyr Zelensky said, two days after Russia targeted strikes on the country’s energy infrastructure. As of this evening, power outages continue in most areas [of Ukraine] And in Kyiv. In total, more than 6 million subscribers,” Zelensky said in his evening address on Friday. The number of affected households has fallen “by half” since Wednesday. About 600,000 people suffer from power outages in the capital, Kyiv, and the regions of Odessa and Lviv, he said. Vinnytsia and Dnipropetrovsk are among the hardest hit, with temperatures approaching freezing.
The European Union will intensify its efforts to provide Ukraine with support for the restoration and conservation of energy and heatingsaid the European Commission President on Friday. Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement after a phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky that the EU’s executive arm is preparing to hand over large donations to Ukraine from EU countries and from the reserves of the European Commission.
Russian bombing of the city of Kherson in southern Ukraine killed 15 civilians officials said Friday, as engineers across the country scrambled to restore heating, water and power to major cities. City official Galina Logova said many “private houses and high-rise buildings” had been damaged. The shelling of Kherson, the main eastern city recently recaptured by Ukrainian forces, was Russia’s heaviest in recent days. Yaroslav Yanushovich, head of the military department in Kherson, said that Russian forces “opened fire on a residential area with multiple rocket launchers”.
Hungarian President Katalin Novak is heading to Kyiv to meet Volodymyr Zelenskyindex.hu, its Ukrainian counterpart, reported on Friday, adding that Novak will go by train through Poland. The Hungarian president’s office said it would neither deny nor confirm the information. Novak, a close ally of nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, will be the highest-ranking Hungarian politician to visit Zelensky since the Russian invasion in February.
Pope Francis said Ukraine’s leaders must be “far away” to ensure peace, indicating that Kyiv would have to make concessions to end the war with Russia. In an open letter released on Friday to mark the nine-month anniversary of the war, the pope praised the strength of Ukrainians in the face of the offensive. “The world has recognized a bold and strong people, a people that suffers, prays, weeps, struggles, resists and hopes: a noble and martyred people.”
Four nuclear power plants in Ukraine have been reconnected to the national electricity grid said the International Atomic Energy Agency, having lost all power off the site earlier this week. All facilities were cut off from the grid on Wednesday for the first time in Ukraine’s history after the latest wave of Russian air strikes on critical infrastructure. The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement on Friday that Ukraine had told it on Friday to reconnect its plants in Rivne, southern Ukraine and Khmelnytskyi. Kyiv said earlier that Ukraine had reconnected the huge Zaporizhia plant on Thursday.
Armenia has asked French President Emmanuel Macron to chair peace talks with Azerbaijan In a fresh challenge to Vladimir Putin’s increasingly loose grip on Russia’s regional allies in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine. The snub from a traditional ally Putin comes immediately against the backdrop of his disastrous summit with six former Soviet countries.
Diplomats from the European Union They were meeting on Friday night to try to reach an agreement on a price level to limit Russian oil exports, according to a report by Bloomberg. European governments have Failed so far To reach an agreement before the December 5 deadline. The G7 proposal for a ceiling of $65-70 a barrel is considered too high by some, and too low by others.
Angela Merkel has insisted that her position as a lame duck in the final months of her time in office has made it somewhat impossible for her to influence Vladimir Putin’s behaviour.. The former German chancellor appeared on the defensive, quietly defying her inability to change the course of decision-making that the Russian president had taken in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. UkraineAccording to a German news magazine SPIEGEL She felt fully aware that her ability to negotiate with Putin was minimal because it was known that she would not run for a fifth term.
The head of the Russian mercenary division Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has claimed that a former US Marine general works for the group.. In response to a request for comment from Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, Prigozhin said on Friday: “There are not very many Finnish citizens in the Wagner PMC, about 20 people… They are fighting in a British battalion.” [as part of Wagner PMC] which is led by a US citizen, a former general of the Marine Corps, ”said Prigozhin, as reported by the press service of his company, Concorde.
Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
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