‘They destroyed the entire energy system.’ Ukraine assesses the situation in liberated Kherson.
Before retreating from Kherson, the Russian military wiped out the city’s energy system, says Dmytro Sakharuk, executive director of the DTEK energy holding company.
We need to look at the regions where there is no electricity at all. Today, that’s liberated Kherson. The rashists destroyed the entire energy system there… There’s just no power there at all. We need to concentrate all our efforts on restoring electricity.
According to Sakharuk, power could be restored to the city after a month, although a more precise estimate will be possible only after a detailed analysis of the damage.
“We’re ready to provide manpower, equipment, and materials to help restore the energy infrastructure of Kherson and the liberated territories in the region as fast as possible ,” added Sakharuk.
Roman Holovnya, adviser to the mayor of Kherson, later said that the city was a “humanitarian catastrophe” – residents are critically low on water, medicine, and food. “The occupiers and the collaborators did everything possible to make those people who remained in the city suffer maximally in the days, weeks, months of waiting…” said Holovnya, according to Ukrainian Pravda. According to Holovnya, the first humanitarian aid vehicles have already arrived in Kherson.
In times of war it is impossible to immediately verify information disseminated even by official representatives of parties to the conflict.
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On November 9, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu gave the order to transfer Russian troops to the left bank of the Dnipro, leaving Kherson. On November 11, Ukrainian troops entered the city, and later that day Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the liberation of Kherson. Ukrainian media reported the previous day that Russian soldiers were undermining the city’s infrastructure as they retreated.
Since October 10, Russia has been launching missiles at Ukrainian cities, damaging around 40 percent of the country’s energy infrastructure. The shelling continued, at various levels of intensity, into November. On November 6, the New York Times reported that authorities in Kyiv are considering the possibility of evacuating every resident of the city in case of a total loss of energy.