Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia would surely launch new missile attacks on his country and warned defense forces and citizens to prepare to withstand another week of strain on the power grid as snow fell in Kyiv.
City authorities said workers were close to completing restoration of power, water and heat after days of Russian attacks, but high demand meant some blackouts had been imposed.
“We understand that the terrorists are planning new strikes. We know this for a fact,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address late on Sunday. “And as long as they have missiles, they, unfortunately, will not calm down.”
Zelenskiy said the coming week could be as difficult as the previous one when attacks on electricity infrastructure subjected Ukrainians to the most acute power cuts since Russian troops invaded in February, Reuters reported on Monday.
There was no response from Moscow to Zelenskiy’s claims.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Moscow has said it does not target the civilian population. The Kremlin said on Thursday that Kyiv could “end the suffering” of its population by meeting Russia’s demands.
Russia annexed swaths of Ukraine’s east and south in September and President Vladimir Putin said Moscow’s territorial demands are non-negotiable. After the annexation, Zelenskiy said he would not negotiate with Moscow and that Ukraine’s territorial integrity cannot be negotiated.
Sunday was relatively calm with no devastating attacks on Kyiv or other major cities. Ukraine’s central army command said Russian forces launched four missile attacks and fired multiple times on civilian objects in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
Intense fighting raged along front lines in various parts of Ukraine, particularly in the eastern Donetsk region, Zelenskiy said.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on Sunday that Russian troops had shelled a dozen villages in the eastern region of Donetsk, including the main targets of Bakhmut and Avdiivka.
Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said Russian forces had launched several failed attacks on the town of Soledar, near Bakhmut, and had taken heavy losses in a separate push towards Avdiivka.
Heavy fighting was also going on in the northeastern Kharkiv region, near areas recaptured by the Ukrainian army in September and October, he said on YouTube.