Ukraine suffered more blackouts after another wave of Russian air strikes on its power stations, but Kyiv vowed to press on with its counterattack in Kherson as occupation officials told all civilians in the regional capital and nearby areas to evacuate immediately.
As fierce fighting continued in the southern Kherson province and the eastern Donbas area, Moscow claimed Kyiv could detonate a “dirty bomb”, and Russia and Ukraine continued to accuse each other of planning to blow up a major dam on the Dnieper river in Kherson province – allegations that neither side has backed up with evidence.
Ukraine says Russia has wrecked more than a third of its power stations in missile and drone strikes that continued over the weekend, prompting the country’s energy operator to warn of more planned blackouts on Sunday as crews worked to stabilise and repair the national grid.
“The terrorists’ main target is energy. So please be even more attentive than before to the need to consume electricity carefully,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an address. “I want to emphasise that neither this strike by terrorists nor any similar strikes by them will stop our defenders…Our defence forces are getting everything they need to defend the country and are pushing forward every day – I emphasise: every day.”
Just days after calling on residents of towns north of Kherson to evacuate in the face of advancing Ukrainian troops, Moscow appointees in the region announced on Saturday that civilians in Kherson city, the regional capital, should also cross the from the western to the eastern side of the Dnieper river.
Occupation officials have said they are also leaving Kherson, the only regional capital that Russia captured since launching all-out war on Ukraine in February, but insist that the main aim of the evacuation is to help Moscow’s troops hold on to the city.
Ukraine has urged its people not to leave, assuring them that its army does not intend to strike any civilian targets and warning that Russian troops will use them as “human shields” during their retreat and may not let them return home.
Russia has warned that it could use its entire military arsenal – which includes nuclear weapons – to stop Ukraine retaking four regions, including Kherson, over which the Kremlin declared sovereignty last month in a breach of international law.
Moscow and Kyiv have repeatedly accused each other of planning to blow up the Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power station on the Dnieper river in Kherson region, and Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu told his French and Turkish counterparts on Sunday that Ukraine may be plotting to explode a radioactive “dirty bomb” on its territory and blame it on the Kremlin’s forces; he offered no evidence for the claim.
There are also concerns for safety at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant – Europe’s biggest – and G7 states urged Moscow’s forces to end “repeated kidnapping of (its) Ukrainian…leadership and staff…and immediately return full control of (the plant) to its rightful sovereign owner, Ukraine”.
