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Russia launched a Christmas attack on Ukraine's power system, leaving more than half a million customers without heat, water and electricity.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack, the 13th major attack of 2024 on the country's grid, was “deliberate” and was nothing. “What can be inhuman?” wrote to X.
About 50 of the 70 missiles launched in the attack were intercepted, and a “significant” part of the more than 100 drones used, Zelenskyy added.
This year Ukrainians marked Christmas Day on December 25 for the second time, after switching to the western Gregorian calendar last year. The decision to stop celebrating Christmas on January 7 in accordance with the Orthodox calendar was made by Kyiv to distance itself from Russian influence.
Oleh Syniehubov, the governor of Ukraine's eastern Kharkiv region, told Ukrainian state TV news that the attack left more than half a million customers without heating, water and electricity.
Temperatures throughout Ukraine are around freezing.
Heating equipment was also cut off in other parts of Ukraine, Ivano-Frankivsk and Dnipropetrovsk, in the west and south of the country.
Ukraine's power grid operator, Ukrenergo, urged customers to reduce consumption by not switching on too many appliances at the same time, adding that the system was a flashback to the previous Russian attack on December 13.
Ukraine's largest private company, DTEK, said its power stations were damaged and one of its longtime employees was killed.
Ukraine's foreign minister, Andriy Sybiha, said in X that the attack reflects Russian president Vladimir Putin's response “to those who talk about 'the end of Christmas' with deception.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said last week that Zelenskyy had rejected his request for a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange on Orthodox Christmas, January 7.
Ukraine denied that the proposal was ever on the table, asking Hungary to “stop lying” about the war. On Friday, Heorhii Tykhyi, the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, described it as a “PR, move” by Orbán.