Putin weaponising winter in opposition to the EU, Kyiv warns

“The aggressor is shelling not solely the important thing substations of Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s grid operator, however the producing tools/grid infrastructure of thermal energy vegetation and key co-generation vegetation as nicely,” the memo mentioned.

“This assault was unprovoked, had no navy objective apart from to terrorise the folks of Ukraine and create a complete catastrophe within the nation,” it mentioned.

“Russian power employees are serving to to destroy Ukraine’s power system. They advise the navy on which objects to hit first as they know Ukraine’s power system for the reason that epoch of Soviet Union (USSR),” it added, highlighting the systematic nature of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s marketing campaign.

The message was additionally pressed dwelling by Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelensky personally in his video-address to EU leaders.

“Russia is scary a brand new wave of migration of Ukrainians to European Union international locations,” he mentioned on Thursday (20 October).

Russian missiles continued to strike Ukrainian power-supply targets over the weekend.

Temperatures in components of Ukraine fall to beneath minus 30 levels Celsius in winter.

Some 4.3 million Ukrainians have already fled to the EU since Russia invaded in February.

One other 750,000 extra nonetheless contained in the nation had been anticipated to maneuver in search of heating and housing as temperatures fell, the Czech EU presidency estimated in mid-October, in a determine prone to have ballooned by now.

“On the eve of the winter season, a whole lot of hundreds of [Ukrainian] households stay with out electrical energy and gasoline,” the Ukrainian memo additionally mentioned.

Europeans have been welcoming towards Ukrainian refugees thus far.

However hovering dwelling prices and power costs in Europe meant “EU residents could discover it tougher to proceed offering short-term shelter in their very own properties” as winter approaches, the Czechs warned.

Russian disinformation was additionally attempting to stigmatise refugees, it added.

Putin has a observe document of utilizing migration to attempt to destabilise the EU, by scary clashes between proper and left-wing politicians.

His ally, Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenka, compelled tens of hundreds of principally Arab migrants into Poland and the Baltic states in 2021, in what the EU on the time referred to as “hybrid warfare”.

Putin’s bombing of civilian targets in Syria in 2016 to push folks to the EU through Turkey was described on the time by US basic Philip Breedlove as “intentionally weaponising migration”.

Kyiv listed power-supply gadgets, reminiscent of transformers, that Ukraine wanted from the EU to maintain the lights on.

It additionally listed the handfuls of Ukrainian power infrastructure items that Russia had demolished, writing earlier than this weekend’s newest assaults.

“We have to minimize the move of Russia’s fossil revenues. Because the begin of the warfare, EU funds for Russian gas are over €100 billion,” Ukraine mentioned, as EU international locations proceed to purchase Russian oil and gasoline for now.

“We name on our worldwide companions to determine an escrow account and to repurpose funds for Russian gasoline to the wants of restore of damages to Ukrainian infrastructure,” Zelensky’s authorities mentioned.