Ukraine war: Kyiv locals queue for water after Russian strikes
Ukraine war: Kyiv locals queue for water after Russian strikes
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Watch: Kyiv locals seen queuing for water
By Hugo Bachega in Kyiv & James FitzGerald
BBC News
People in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv had to queue for water after Russian missiles struck key facilities across the country on Monday.
An evening update from the city’s mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko, said 40% of consumers in Kyiv remained without water, and 270,000 homes had no power.
Thirteen people were injured in the attacks nationwide, Ukraine said.
Russia said the strikes were aimed at Ukraine’s military control and energy systems, and that all targets were hit.
They were partly in response to an attack on a Russian warship over the weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday.
In its evening update, the Ukrainian military said it had shot down 45 out of 55 missiles that were launched.
For security reasons, the outside world is rarely shown the destruction of Ukraine’s critical infrastructure by Russian airstrikes.
Ukrainian officials say this is to avoid sharing information that could be used in future attacks, including locations hit – or potentially missed.
But the consequences of Monday’s strikes were everywhere to be seen. Rolling power cuts have been introduced in several regions.
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Ukrainians in general have been urged to reduce what is already an “extremely frugal” electricity consumption, in the words of President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In Kyiv, streetlights were turned off and trolleybuses replaced with conventional buses.
Long queues were seen across the city, as residents lined up to collect water from pumps after their own supplies were cut.
Mr Klitschko earlier said as many as 80% of Kyiv’s consumers had been left without water in their homes, and urged fellow residents of the capital to head out and stock up.
In a later update, he said many households had been reconnected.
In addition to the capital, other areas affected by the strikes included Lviv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzia.
Overall, 18 facilities – most of them energy-generating – were hit by missiles and drones in 10 regions, Ukrainian officials said.
One of the missiles intercepted by Ukraine’s air defences landed in a border town in Moldova, causing damage to houses but no casualties, according to authorities in the neighbouring country.
Moldova later said a Russian embassy employee in Chisinau had been told to leave its territory – without specifying who the individual was.
