The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, has warned residents they must prepare for the worst this winter if Russia keeps striking the country's energy infrastructure — and that means possibly having no electricity, water, or heat in the freezing cold winter months. "We are doing everything to avoid this. But let's be frank, our enemies are doing everything for the city to be without heat, without electricity, without water supply, in general, so we all die," Klitschko told Ukrainian state media. "The future of the country and the future of each of us depends on how prepared we are for different situations," he added. Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelensky said late on Sunday that about 4.5 million people were without electricity. He called on Ukrainians to endure the hardships, saying "we must get through this winter and be even stronger in the spring than now." Russia has focused on striking Ukraine's energy infrastructure over the last month, causing power shortages and rolling outages across the country. Kyiv was having hourly rotating blackouts on Sunday in parts of the city and the surrounding region. Rolling blackouts also were planned on Monday in the Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Sumy, Kharkiv, Poltava, and Zhytomyr regions, according to Ukraine's state-owned energy operator, Ukrenergo. Kyiv plans to deploy about 1,000 heating points, but it's unclear if that would be enough for a city of three million people. An estimated 40% of Ukraine's energy infrastructure has been damaged since Oct. 10. Russian-appointed authorities say they have partially restored power in the occupied Ukrainian city of Kherson. The city was cut off from power and water supplies on Sunday following damage to three power lines. Moscow has accused Kyiv of carrying out a "terrorist attack" on power lines in the region, which Russia illegally annexed in September. Ukrainian officials have not responded to the allegations. Russia has repeatedly called for civilians to "evacuate" from Kherson to Russian-controlled territory on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River in anticipation of a major Ukrainian counteroffensive. Kyiv says the movement of people out of Kherson is forced deportations. Residents of the city of Kherson received warning messages on their phones urging them to evacuate as soon as possible, Ukraine's military said on Sunday. Kherson was captured by Moscow during the early days of the invasion. The Kremlin-installed administration has already moved tens of thousands of civilians out of the city. Russia has been "occupying and evacuating" Kherson simultaneously, trying to convince Ukrainians that they're leaving when in fact they're digging in, Nataliya Humenyuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraine's Southern Forces, told state television. "There are defense units that have dug in there quite powerfully, a certain amount of equipment has been left, firing positions have been set up," she said. Russian forces are also fighting fiercely in the eastern region of Donetsk, another province where Russia has declared martial law after its illegal annexation. Missile strikes have almost completely destroyed the power plants that serve the city of Bakhmut and the nearby town of Soledar, said Pavlo Kyrylenko, the region's Ukrainian governor, said. Shelling killed one civilian and wounded three, he reported late on Saturday. "The destruction is daily, if not hourly," Kyrylenko told state television. The city of Donetsk has been controlled by Russian-backed separatists since 2014. The deputy head of Ukraine's presidential office said that Russian strikes in the Zaporizhzhia region targeted civilian objects, killing one person. — Euronews
