Overview
- Ukraine declared a state of emergency for the entire energy sector and created a national coordination center focused on the capital.
- Kyiv faces prolonged rolling blackouts of about three hours on and ten or more hours off, with hundreds of residential buildings still without heat in severe frost, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
- Authorities opened warming points as many stores shortened hours or closed because generators are costly and limited, and local media showed empty supermarket shelves.
- Belgorod’s governor urged residents to prepare for total power and heat loss, advised sending children to relatives with electricity and warmth, and said evacuations could be organized if infrastructure fails, after strikes that local reports said cut power to up to 600,000 and water to 200,000.
- Ukraine’s energy ministry said planned rolling outages cannot be implemented in Kyiv and parts of Sumy and Rivne because of infrastructure damage and high load.