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LAST UPDATE | 22 Nov 2022
UKRAINE PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR Zelenskyy has said that Russia is trying to use the cold this winter as a “weapon of mass destruction” by striking energy infrastructure.
“The Kremlin wants to transform the cold this winter into a weapon of mass destruction,” Zelenskyy told a meeting of French mayors in a video message.
“To survive this winter and to prevent Russia transforming the cold into an instrument of terror and submission, we need a lot of things,” he added.
He urged the Association of French Mayors to send generators, support for de-mining operations and equipment for Ukraine’s emergency services and medics.
“I call on you to be very concrete with your help and to support out towns and communities against terrorism,” he added.
It comes after Ukrainian authorities began evacuating civilians from recently liberated sections of the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, fearing a lack of heat, power and water due to Russian shelling will make living conditions too difficult this winter.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) concurred – saying millions face a “life-threatening” winter in Ukraine.
Moscow has been deliberately targeting energy infrastructure, leaving millions of homes across the country without electricity as temperatures plunge.
“This winter will be about survival,” WHO regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, told reporters on Monday, adding it would be “life-threatening for millions of people in Ukraine”.
Authorities urged residents of the two southern regions, which Russian forces have been shelling for months, to move to safer areas in the central and and western parts of the country.
Ukrainian deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said the government will provide transport, accommodation and medical care for them, with priority for women with children, the sick and elderly.
To conserve power, Vereshchuk last month asked citizens now living abroad not to return to Ukraine for the winter.
Other officials have suggested residents in Kyiv or elsewhere who have the resources to leave Ukraine for a few months should do so to save power for hospitals and other key facilities.
The WHO delivered a chilling warning yesterday about the energy crisis’s human impact on Ukraine.
“This winter will be life-threatening for millions of people in Ukraine,” said regional director for Europe, Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge.
“Attacks on health and energy infrastructure mean hundreds of hospitals and healthcare facilities are no longer fully operational, lacking fuel, water and electricity.”
He warned of health risks such as respiratory and cardiovascular problems from people trying to warm themselves by burning charcoal or wood and using diesel generators and electric heaters.
The evacuations are taking place over a week after Ukraine recaptured the city of Kherson, on the western bank of the Dnieper River, and surrounding areas in a major battlefield gain.
Since then, heading into the winter, residents and authorities alike are realising how much power and other infrastructure the Russians damaged or destroyed before retreating.
Ukraine is known for its brutal winter weather and snow has already covered Kyiv, the capital, and other parts of the country.
Russian forces are fortifying their defence lines along Dnieper River’s eastern bank, fearing Ukrainian forces will push deeper into the region.
In the weeks before Ukraine’s successful counteroffensive, Russian-installed authorities relocated tens of thousands of Kherson city residents to Russian-held areas.
Yesterday, Russian-installed authorities urged other residents to evacuate an area on the river’s eastern bank which Moscow now controls, citing intense fighting in Kherson’s Kakhovskiy district.
Russia has been pounding Ukraine’s power grid and other infrastructure from the air for weeks, causing widespread blackouts and leaving millions of Ukrainians without electricity, heat and water.
To cope, four-hour or longer power outages were scheduled on Monday in 15 of Ukraine’s 27 regions, according to Volodymyr Kudrytsky, head of Ukraine’s state grid operator Ukrenergo.
Ukrenergo plans more outages today.
Zelenskyy said Russian missile strikes have damaged more than 50% of the country’s energy facilities.
The Ukrainian president has repeated his calls for Nato nations and other allies to recognise Russia as a terrorist state, saying its shelling of energy facilities was tantamount “to the use of a weapon of mass destruction”.
He also again urged stricter sanctions against Russia and appealed for more air defence aid.
“The terrorist state needs to see that they do not stand a chance,” he told Nato’s 68th Parliamentary Assembly meeting in Madrid in a video address, after which he said the body approved the terrorist designation.
Zelenskyy and his wife made a rare joint public appearance yesterday to observe a moment of silence and place candles at a Kyiv memorial for those killed in Ukraine’s pro-European Union mass protests in 2014.
As bells rang in a memorial tribute, Ukraine’s first couple walked under a grey sky on streets dusted with snow and ice up to a wall of stone plaques bearing the names of fallen protesters.
Their visit coincided with fresh reminders on Monday of more death and destruction on Ukrainian soil.
At least four civilians were killed and eight more wounded in Ukraine over the past 24 hours, the deputy head of the country’s presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said on Monday.
A Russian missile strike in the north-east Kharkiv region on Sunday night killed one person and wounded two as it hit a residential building in the village of Shevchenkove, according to the region’s governor.
One person was hurt in the Dnipropetrovsk region, where Russian forces shelled the city of Nikopol and surrounding areas, governor Valentyn Reznichenko said.
Nikopol lies across the river from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station.
In the eastern Donetsk region, which Moscow partially controls, Russian forces shelled 14 towns and villages, the region’s Ukrainian governor said.
Heavy fighting was taking place near the Ukrainian-held city of Bakhmut, where a school was damaged.
In Makiivka, which is under Russian control, an oil depot was hit and caught fire.
Russian-installed authorities said more than 105,000 people in the province’s capital, Donetsk, were left without electricity on Monday after Ukrainian shelling damaged power lines.
One person was killed, officials said, and 59 miners were trapped underground after power was cut to four coal mines.
In the neighbouring Luhansk region, most of which is under Russian control, the Ukrainian army is advancing towards the key cities of Kreminna and Svatove, where the Russians have set up a defence line, according to Luhansk’s Ukrainian governor Serhiy Haidai.
“There are successes and the Ukrainian army is moving very slowly, but it will be much more difficult for Russians to defend themselves after Svatove and Kreminna [are retaken],” Haidai told Ukrainian television.
Britain’s Ministry of Defence said retaining control of Svatove should be a political priority for Russia but “both Russian defensive and offensive capability continues to be hampered by severe shortages of munitions and skilled personnel”.
In another development, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said its inspectors have reported that weekend shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, had not damaged key equipment and they had identified no nuclear safety concerns.
The six reactors, which are all shut down, are stable, and the integrity of spent and fresh fuel, along with stored radioactive waste, was confirmed, the IAEA said, adding that staff are repairing damage to other equipment.
As they have for months, Kyiv and Moscow blamed each other for the shelling of the Russian-occupied power station, and again the IAEA did not comment on who was responsible.
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Unless Leo is true to his word we can expect the middle-class worker who pays for everything and gets nothing to be screwed over yet again.
@Avina Laaf:
Unfortunately you are falling into the trap of social division which this iniquitious govt promotes. The intentions of many of those whose actions which led to the creation of this state was not to create an Ireland divided on social lines, but one of equality. Successive Governments have squandered that vision and created an Ireland based on social class divisions, the next budget will do the same if not make it even worse.
@Con Murphy:
Ironically it’s the excessive redistribution of wealth from the hard-pressed middle income worker to the welfare class that has led to division.
Hardly surprising when it’s given rise to a whole new class of working poor which supports a whole new class of ‘welfare-for-lifers’ that are almost as well off (and in some cases better off) but don’t contribute anything.
@Avina Laaf:
So you approve of the socially class divided Ireland. Good luck with that so.
@Con Murphy:
No, I just believe that ‘equality’ should also include input to society – those that work harder should get more back (including carers etc.). It’s not that hard to grasp.
@Avina Laaf: It would be great if what you want was true, that those who work harder would get back more. But they won’t, you mention carers, but many carers get nothing for what they do especially if they give up a job to care for a family member,those who work harder will be gratefully exploited by an abusive employer who might even get a tax break for their extra effort.
@Con Murphy:
That was my point
@Avina Laaf: In a way you’re right, welfare for the rich and a few crumbs for the poor. This Republic, was never one and we were just fooled into thinking it was. They should reduce, unemployment down to 180 and pass the savings back to the working poor or struggling middle classes. Set up a housing agency, transfer all local authority land/housing to it and let them borrow on that income to build more housing.
@Avina Laaf: “welfare class”? You do realise most of the welfare budget is spent on pensioners?
@Stephen Brady:
Do I have to spell it out??
Why not bring petrol down to meet diesel, why doesn’t everything go up. The government pushed us all to buy diesels and now they punish us again.
@Joshua Walsh: and in time they’ll push up all to by electric which will also turn out to be a disaster. Its the circle of squeezing everything out of the taxpayer to pay for this welfare state
It doesn’t take a genious to work that out. The politicians will get their usual pay rise of minimun of 3000 starting now. Our parents will get a 5 a week starting next year. Me the tax payer will get nothing. ESB, GAS, Phone bills, food, petrol, diesel, heating going up but then it will all have to go up so we can pay the politicians pay rise for doing nothing but exercising their mouths talking crap.
This budget will be all about LEO and LEO. The canvassing has all ready started for the election.
@Declan Byrne: We allow them, to buy our votes and stop voting for them.
Rest assured for every 5 euro they give they will take back 10 euro What shower they are all the same
That USC reduction is an insult.
To be fcuk£d sideways, i can tell you one thing I fear on how I’m going to make my next mortgage payment, as I’m completely stretched to the Limit. Mind you i was left with 23 euro in the bank last month, maybe Leo can take that before if goes for my clothes, im up every morning at 06:00 but still not sure if that’s in Leo’s guidelines
Oh yes it will be a giveaway, to FGs rich friends!
Tax tax tax tax….and don’t touch Apple
5euro a week to old age pensioners = 260euro a year for people who have worked hard all theirs lives, for fck sake!!!! Should be cutting the unbelievable pensions of his retired cronies, what a shower. The increases due to electricity etc more than cancels out that increase, so basically pensioners get sweet f all. Give with one hand and take back on the double with the other, bunch of morans.
@Michael Byrne: unfortunately, these same pensioners will always vote for FF and FG. So it’s self inflicted really.
It’s laughable what the government think the people should get..in this budget.. but there is no end to what they award themselves and nobody says a word.. !!!
Nothing expected in this budget or many more in the future.The books need balancing.Certain departments are underfunded others are understaffed.Move a bit of money here and put it back there.We may make a fiver in our wages but we’ll pay it back elsewhere.My major surprise is that sooooo many people expect something from it.Well,be prepared for nothing!
What we can expect as per usual is sfa.
Ahh the Budget!
The annual three card trick game rigged by the Govt to siphon funds from the hard working and shuffle it back to their chums, under the glare of cameras and the sycophants applaud that “it wasn’t as bad as we expected!”
Pay rises for the lads
Hopefully we’ll see a rise in the standard rate cut off point of 33.8k.
And a continued rise in the earned income tax credit so that small business owners will be treated equally.
I expect lots of meaningless slogans over anything they give us with one hand to distract us from the fine detail that takes more with the other.
USC needs to go quicker than it is, the government seems happy to keep the USC around and to give increases to the OAP’s to buy their vote and to keep the middle class paying this unfair extra tax.
we can expect a new episode of father ted
People on this comment stream are talking about working class poor being pitched against each other are we really surprised .
Working people pay for social welfare for the totally unemployable who never pay a cent and the keyboard worriers we have here are as bad
Blame everyone else and never contribute anything
SAME comment all the time
Can’t take a job, get enough on the Labour
Can’t get a job, the rent goes up
Can’t get a job, would loose the MEDICAL card
It’s not they can’t it’s they won’t !
And I’m not talking about the pensioners who worked their lives THEY deserve their money the least we can do for them .
Just the same spungers over and over again.
Go out get a job
CONTRIBUTE CONTRIBUTE CONTRIBUT
NOT TAKE TAKE TAKE .
Stop crying like little girls
That sean o rourke and RTE have already furnished the finance minister with the “questions” supposedly phoned in the morning after the budget!
A cut in VAT on novelty socks is a dead cert.
Motor Tax Equalisation …. grossly unfair anomaly should be fixed.
€280 annual Motor Tax for owners of new Mercedes C-class 2.1L
€270 annual Motor Tax for owners of new BMW 318 2L
€580 (4x€145) annual Motor Tax for owners of Pre-2008 Toyota Avensis 1.6L
€300 more tax paid for use of Irish roads by owners of older cars – grossly unfair.
@Neuville-Kepler62F: my Portuguese cars tax is €42, same vehicle in Ireland last time I looked was €701 , keep the recovery going Leo.
Get 13 billion from apple , fix the health service and get the homeless into houses, make people work that have been on the dole for ages ,the government shouldn’t go down the old reliable road of tax ,drink ,smokes ,fuel and vrt , there are slot of multi nationals in this country let them pay a fair % of tax.
Spect me to read that double talkin jive ooo A Sunday fukin morn
Under a Fine Gael led Government the middle class. retired, and vulnerable members of our society can expect to be screwed as usual.
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