Ukrenergo declares emergency in the country's power system

This was reported by Ukrenergo.

"By the Market Rules, we inform about the onset of an emergency, starting from the billing period from 09:00 am on 16 December," the message says.

More than 50% of the united energy system consumption was lost by Russian shelling. Director of the energy research center Oleksandr Kharchenko explained in a comment to Babel publication that by damage to substations and generating capacities, there is no technical possibility of providing electricity to more than 50% of the country's consumers (including critical infrastructure). It is impossible to produce more energy or transport it.

"Today, there was another massive Russian attack on the power system, about nine generation facilities were damaged. We are verifying these damages. Also, the corresponding substations that transmit electricity were damaged, which led to the restriction of production at nuclear generation facilities. We are fixing all this and will modify the situation in such a way as to increase production in the coming hours," said the Minister of Energy of Ukraine, Herman Halushchenko, during the TV marathon.

He stressed that this was another terrorist attack by Russians trying to hit power plants and electricity distribution facilities. Despite this, according to the Minister, Ukraine is already starting to restore the power system.

• On December 16, Russia launched a massive missile attack on Ukraine. During the air alert in some regions of Ukraine, air defense was reported, the Russian forces fired more than 10 missiles at critical infrastructure in Kharkiv and the energy infrastructure was damaged in the capital.