Russia-Ukraine war: Kyiv mayor says water supply restored but many without power and heat after Russian strikes – live

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Here are some of the latest images we have received from the Ukraine after Russia fired more than 70 missiles at Ukraine in one of its biggest attacks since the start of the war.

The mayor of Ukraine’s capital said early Saturday the city’s metro system was back in service and that all residents had been reconnected to water supply a day after the latest wave of Russian air strikes on critical infrastructure.

Ukrainian officials said Russia fired more than 70 missiles on Friday in one of its biggest attacks since the start of the war, forcing emergency blackouts nationwide.

Vitali Klitschko also said heating had been restored to half the city and electricity had been returned to two-thirds.

“But schedules of emergency outages are being implemented,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “Because the deficit of electricity is significant.”

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Christine Kearney and I’ll be bringing you the latest developments. It’s about 830am in Kyiv, here’s where things stand:

Ukraine was working Saturday to restore electricity to hospitals, heating systems and other critical infrastructure in major cities after Russia’s latest wave of attacks on the power grid prompted accusations of “war crimes”. The volley of missiles unleashed Friday pitched multiple cities into darkness, cutting water and heat and forcing people to endure freezing cold.

Russia fired more than 70 missiles at Ukraine in one of its biggest attacks since the start of the war. Ukraine shot down 60 out of the 76 missiles fired at it, the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces said.

Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said early Saturday the city’s metro system was back in service and that all residents had been reconnected to water supply a day after the latest wave of Russian air strikes on critical infrastructure. He also said heating had been restored to half the city and electricity had been returned to two-thirds.

Second largest city Kharkiv had restored power to just 55 percent of residents, with plans to have a fully operational grid by midnight.

France and the European Union said the suffering inflicted on freezing civilians constitutes war crimes, with the bloc’s foreign policy chief calling the bombings “barbaric”. “These cruel, inhumane attacks aim to increase human suffering and deprive Ukrainian people,” Josep Borrell said.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia still had enough missiles for several more massive strikes and he again urged western allies to supply Kyiv with more and better air defence systems. “Whatever the rocket worshippers from Moscow are counting on, it still won’t change the balance of power in this war,” he said in an evening address.

The mass strikes appeared to be a continuation of the Kremlin’s attempt to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Ukraine’s state energy company Ukrenergo said energy consumption had fallen by 50% as a result of the attacks. The company said Russia had hit thermal power plants, hydroelectric plants and substations of main networks. Ukrenergo said it will take longer to repair the national grid and restore power than it did after previous Russian missile attacks, with priority given to “critical infrastructure facilities”.

Energy infrastructure was hit across the country, resulting in complete outages in Ukraine’s eastern and central regions of Kharkiv and Poltava. Nine power facilities in the country were damaged by Friday’s strikes, Ukraine’s energy minister, Herman Halushchenko, said. The mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, said the missile strikes caused “colossal” damage to infrastructure and left the city without power, heating and water. A senior Ukrainian presidential official said emergency power shutdowns were being brought in across the country..

The Kyiv city administration said Ukraine’s capital had withstood “one of the biggest rocket attacks” launched by Russian forces since they invaded Ukraine nearly 10 months ago. The administration said Ukrainian air defence forces shot down 37 of “about 40” that entered the city’s airspace. There were water disruptions in every district, Klitschko said.

At least eight people were killed and 23 injured by Ukrainian shelling in the Russian-controlled Luhansk region of Ukraine, Russia’s state Tass news agency reported on Friday, citing an unidentified source in the emergency services. The shelling destroyed a building in the village of Lantrativka and some people were trapped under rubble, Tass said. The head of the “people’s militia” in Luhansk also claimed there were civilian casualties as a result of Ukrainian shelling on the town of Svatove on Friday morning.

EU states should buy arms jointly to replenish stocks after supplying Ukraine, said the bloc’s defence agency, warning the US may not always be able to shield Europe from threats. “The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine demonstrates our capability shortfalls,” said Ji?? ?ediv?, chief executive of the European Defence Agency. The agency was in talks with European arms firms about boosting production, he said, as well as with countries about clubbing together to buy equipment and ammunition.

Russian president Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, on Friday. The Kremlin said Putin gave “fundamental assessments” of the conflict in Ukraine during the call, at Modi’s request. The Indian leader’s office was cited as saying that he had reiterated his call for dialogue and diplomacy as the only way forward in the conflict.

Putin will visit Belarus for talks with the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, on Monday. The pair will discuss Russian-Belarusian integration “as well as current topics on the international and regional agenda”, the Kremlin said. Putin and Lukashenko will hold a one-on-one meeting in which they will “give priority to security issues and exchange views on the situation in the region and the world”, Belarusian state-owned news agency Belta said, without mentioning Ukraine.