KYIV, Ukraine — With Kyiv facing rolling electricity outages, authorities on Tuesday rushed to repair the damage from a barrage of Russian missiles that slammed into the heart of the Ukrainian capital, in a significant escalation of the nearly eight-month-old war that drew international condemnation of Moscow.
Many Kyiv residents hurried on Tuesday to make whatever preparations they could ahead of potential cuts to power, heat and water — fearful that the missile strikes, which killed at least 20 people across Ukraine on Monday, were a bleak prelude to what they will face repeatedly in coming months.
The attack, which Russian President Vladimir Putin said was retaliation for an explosion over the weekend on the Crimean Bridge, targeted power plants and other critical infrastructure, and underscored the continuing vulnerability of Ukrainian cities despite a surge in Western military aid since Putin’s Feb. 24 invasion.
Speaking to leaders of the Group of Seven via video link on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky voiced his own apprehension about Russia’s intentions in the coming months, and he pleaded again with leaders of the world’s advanced democratic economies for more advanced air defense systems.
Even as they began bracing for difficult months ahead, Kyiv residents voiced determination and resolve.
Olga Sali, who was surveying the gaping crater a Russian bomb left near a playground in one of the city’s central parks, said that she had just dropped her 10-year-old daughter at school on Monday morning before the first missiles struck. Terrified, she hurried to an underground shelter.
But on Tuesday, when the air alert rang out again — in another attack that authorities said was threatened by air defenses — Sali stayed put. “It’s a pity all that has happened in our country,” she said. But: “We decided to stay here, because it’s our home.”
In Kyiv, authorities said they were working to protect vital infrastructure while acknowledging the limits of what they could do without more comprehensive air defenses for the city of an estimated 3 million wartime residents.
Officials said that 83 missiles were fired at different areas of Ukraine on Monday, and that about half of them were shot down.
In response to the attack, in-person schooling in Kyiv was suspended for the remainder of the week. And across the broader capital region, police said they were increasing their patrols in anticipation of evening power cuts, Kyiv regional Police Chief Andriy Nebitov said.
Monday’s strikes created “a certain deficit” in energy capacity in Kyiv, the city’s power company said after the attacks.
To help ease the strain on the grid, the utility announced rolling power outages lasting up to four hours across sectors of the city. It asked people to refrain from using washing machines and other heavy-demand appliances during peak consumption hours, and also urged them to keep devices charged as much as possible given likely service cuts. Water service was also temporarily disrupted in some areas.
Additional strikes on Tuesday left one-third of Ukraine’s western city of Lviv without power, and parts of the city without water, Mayor Andriy Sadovyi reported on Telegram. A power plant in the Vinnytsia region, southwest of Kyiv, was hit twice on Tuesday, officials said, with the second attack injuring at least six workers who were making repairs after the earlier strike.
Kyiv Major Vitali Klitschko described the immense scale of the challenges his administration now faces in sustaining utilities, education, medical care and public transport for a city that may well come under sustained aerial siege.
Unlike earlier in the war, when Russia struck areas outside the city center as it mounted a failed attempt to seize the capital, Monday’s attacks targeted Kyiv’s historic, commercial and government core.
Klitschko said the challenges would only increase during the winter, when Ukraine’s intense cold will make the impact of possible power cuts more painful for residents. More than three-quarters of Kyiv’s buildings are connected to a central heating system powered by gas, which can be disrupted by explosions.
In an interview on Tuesday, Klitschko decried attacks on civilian sites and vital infrastructure.
“War has clear rules,” he said, which Russia has violated. Klitschko said Russia’s leaders were trying “to make people helpless without services, but it’s not successful.”
The mayor contrasted the Russian strike on a largely glass bridge in central Kyiv — a tourist attraction known as the “Klitschko Bridge” because of his involvement in its construction — with the explosion on the Crimean Bridge, a vital road and rail link between mainland Russia and occupied Crimea, which Russia has used as a conduit for weapons, equipment and other supplies for its troops in Ukraine.
Ukraine has not officially claimed responsibility for that attack, but Putin blamed the country’s special services and warned Monday of further missile strikes in the event of other attacks by Ukraine.
Klitschko described the Crimean Bridge as a military target because it has been used to move military resources, and he noted with satisfaction that the Kyiv bridge had suffered only minor damage in Putin’s attack. “It’s a signal they are weak,” he said.
Already the city is planning mobile heating points as a backup to help hospitals and schools during outages. The US government meanwhile announced it would provide Ukraine with $55 million in “winterization” aid to repair heating networks and help Ukrainians prepare to withstand the cold weather ahead.
In a visit to Kyiv last week, Samantha Power, the head of the US Agency for International Development, joined Klitschko in touring a US-funded project to rebuild and upgrade heating pipes damaged by an earlier Russian strike.
Some Kyiv residents aren’t waiting for winter to act. In one electronics store on Tuesday, external power bricks for cellphones were nearly sold out only a few hours after the store opened following a prolonged air alert that morning.
Oleksandr Petrenko, a sales clerk, said the chargers were customers’ biggest request, followed by electronic heaters, and he said the store was in danger of running out. In the store kitchen, even many employees were talking about buying bricks for themselves.
“Because who would have thought that we were going to experience electricity problems here in Kyiv even two days ago?” Petrenko said. “But yesterday’s attack on Kyiv changed the demand.”
Petrenko, 25, shrugged off the possibility of further Russian attacks, which he called “predictable.” He said he was more worried about how the crisis would affect his finances. Because he works on commission, he said he won’t have earnings if the store closes due to air raid sirens. “It’s my only income,” he said.
While Igor Moiseyev’s apartment didn’t lose power on Monday, he wasn’t taking any chances. He and his family have already stocked up on water and groceries, and ordered candles. He’s now planning to assemble a homemade ethanol fireplace so they’ll be able to heat at least part of their apartment.
On Monday, Moiseyev was taking his 12-year-old daughter to school when the air raid siren went off. After he dropped her off — she spent the day in the school bunker with her classmates — he rushed home to seek shelter himself.
Others in Kyiv were not so lucky. Among those killed on Monday was a medical worker named Oksana Leontieva, who was driving to work after dropping her son off at kindergarten, according to a government official.
But Moiseyev said Kyiv residents were steeled against Russia’s aggression unlike when the war first started. “Of course I’m scared for my family,” he said. “But it’s different now than back in February. We are prepared and know exactly what to do and how to act.”
Moiseyev was out looking for a charging brick on Tuesday capable of powering his laptop so that he could continue his remote work for an insurance company if extended blackouts occur.
He cited reports that the United States and Germany may be sending Ukraine additional air defense systems. “I hope we’re going to be better protected,” he said. “We badly need those systems.”
For 22-year-old Victoria Krupenko, who spent the first month of the war in Poland, Monday marked the first time she heard such an explosion — extremely loud, and close to the apartment where she lives.
“I hope never to hear it again,” she said. But she expressed confidence in Ukraine’s military and their ability to shield the city. “They’re doing their best. I believe the Russians just wanted to test us yesterday.”
Isabelle Khurshudyan in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, contributed to this report.
