Nationwide curbs on electricity usage came into force across Ukraine early on Thursday, after more than a week of Russian aerial attacks have pummelled the country’s energy infrastructure and prompted rolling blackouts.

Ukraine’s energy system has suffered more attacks over the past 10 days than during the previous eight months of the war, according to Ukrenergo, the country’s electric utility.

The belt-tightening comes after President Zelensky said that Russian assaults had knocked out a third of the country’s power stations over the past week, just as the weather is beginning to turn colder, raising fears that the strikes on vital services could set off a humanitarian crisis.

The government has ordered Ukrainians to minimise their electricity use from 7am to 11pm (local time), signalling a new phase of the war in which people could lack basic services as winter approaches.

Ukrenergo warned in a statement on the Telegram messaging app of rolling outages lasting up to four hours on Thursday and urged Ukrainians to charge their electrical devices.

“Please make sure that you have charged phones, power banks, water, flashlights and batteries by 7am tomorrow,” it said.

Most of Kyiv’s electric tram lines were replaced with buses on Thursday in an attempt to help conserve electricity, Vitaly Klitschko, the city’s mayor, said.

He appealed to residents to avoid using microwave ovens and electric kettles, according to a post on Telegram.

He told shop owners to limit lighting on signs and screens.

The city also turned on its heating network on Thursday, Klitschko said, “taking into account the weather conditions and the need to save electricity (so that residents of Kyiv do not heat their homes with airconditioners and electric heaters)”.

New York Times News Service