Zelenskiy and Klitschko Trade Blame as Russian Strikes Plunge Kyiv Into Darkness

Developing story. Updated 19:19 UTC

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko traded fresh accusations on Friday over who failed to prepare the capital for Russian strikes that have plunged the city into power and water outages described by Reuters as unprecedented.

Kyiv, a city of more than 3 million people, is entering another winter of attacks on energy facilities. The strikes have brought long periods of emergency power cuts, as Ukraine struggles with a shortage of air defence weapons able to down fast moving missiles and drones. Generators rumble on streets lit by torches, temperatures are nearing freezing, and residents are still waiting for centralised heating to return. City wide water outages last hours and are more frequent than in previous years, Reuters reported.

Kyiv's bridges across the Dnipro River have also come under attack for the first time in Russia's nearly five year war, snarling traffic. Outages have frequently halted metro services.

Outages in seven regions

Russian attacks on Ukraine's energy system caused new outages overnight and on Friday morning in seven regions, Deputy Energy Minister Artem Nekrasov said. The regions are Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Kharkiv and Chernihiv.

"The situation remains most difficult in the capital region," Nekrasov said, adding that utility workers were still having to impose network restrictions because of heavy damage.

The Associated Press reported that Ukraine's air force said Russia launched 227 attack drones, including 86 jet powered ones, with strikes reported at 14 locations and falling debris at eight more. The new cuts follow the strikes on Tuesday, Nov. 3, that caused the worst water outage of the war in Kyiv, a story reported earlier this week.

An exchange less than an hour apart

On Friday, Zelenskiy called the challenges "extremely serious" and suggested Klitschko's administration was partly responsible. "In fact, these are the consequences of the failure to implement decisions at the city level on preparations for the heating season, as well as of this Russian operation against Ukraine's energy infrastructure," he wrote.

Less than an hour later, Klitschko answered in a video address. He suggested the government had "cynically" dragged its feet in approving a resilience plan for the city. "With this kind of intensity of enemy attacks, without protecting key facilities with air-defence systems, the restoration, stable operation, and very existence of these facilities is under major question," he said.

A long running feud

The barbs are the latest in a long running feud between Zelenskiy, a former television comedian elected in 2019, and Klitschko, a former champion boxer who has served as mayor since 2014. Wartime elections are prohibited in Ukraine, so both men have stayed in office beyond their terms.

Klitschko has accused Zelenskiy of trying to score political points by attacking him. In an interview with Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne released on Thursday, Nov. 5, Klitschko said his calls for a meeting with Zelenskiy to address Kyiv's problems had gone unanswered.

For residents, the argument changes little tonight. What matters is how long the power stays off, when the water runs again, and whether heating returns before the cold deepens.