Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky has warned Europeans to expect a difficult winter as the Russian assault on his country causes Moscow to cut oil and gas exports.
“Russia is preparing a decisive energy blow on all Europeans this winter,” Zelensky said on Saturday night, after Moscow closed the main pipeline supplying Russian gas to the continent.
Moscow has cited Western sanctions imposed for its invasion of Ukraine and technical issues for power outages. European countries that have backed the kyiv government with diplomatic and military support have accused Russia of militarizing energy supplies.
Some analysts say shortages and rising costs of living as winter approaches risk undermining Western support for kyiv as governments try to deal with disgruntled populations.
Last week, Moscow said it would keep the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, its main gas channel to Germany, closed, and the G7 countries announced a planned price cap on Russian oil exports.
The Kremlin said it would stop selling oil to countries that applied the cap. For his part, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Sunday that his government had planned a complete halt to gas deliveries in December, but promised that his country would make it through winter. “Russia is no longer a reliable energy partner,” Scholz told a news conference in Berlin.
Zaporizhia nuclear power plant runs out of power
The Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine occupied by Russia has again run out of external power, UN inspectors said on Saturday.
The last remaining main external power line was cut, although a standby line continued to supply electricity to the grid, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a statement. Only one of its six reactors was still in operation, he explained.
The plant was seized by Russian troops shortly after President Vladimir Putin sent his army to the border on February 24 and has become a focal point of the conflict.
Each side has blamed the other for nearby bombings that have raised fears of a nuclear catastrophe. A Russian-installed administration official in Zaporizhia said the situation around the plant had been calm so far on Sunday.
Speaking to Komsomolskaya Pravda radio, the official, Igor Rogov, said there had been no shelling or raids. Russia has twice accused Ukraine of trying to seize the plant in the past two days.
On Saturday, the plant said in a statement that the fifth reactor had been shut down “as a result of constant shelling by the Russian occupation forces” and that there was “not enough capacity from the last standby line to run two reactors.”
On other battlefronts, Ukrainian Telegram channels reported explosions at the Antonivsky Bridge near the southern city of Kherson, which is occupied by Russian forces.
The bridge has been badly damaged by Ukrainian missiles in recent weeks, but Russian troops were trying to repair it or set up a pontoon or barge crossing to keep supplies to Russian units on the right bank of the Dnipro River.
Ukraine last week launched a counteroffensive directed to the south, in particular to the Kherson region, which was seized by the Russians at the beginning of the conflict.
Ukrainian PM visits Germany to ask for more support
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Chmygal arrived in Germany on Sunday, where he hopes to garner stronger support against Russia and turn the page on recent bilateral tensions. It is the first visit at this level by a Ukrainian representative to Germany since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24.
Germany has often been accused of lukewarmness in its policy of military support for Ukraine, which has angered the government in kyiv. But relations between the two countries have improved since then and on Monday, German Prime Minister Olaf Scholz wished his country to take “a special responsibility” to help Ukraine strengthen its artillery and air defense systems.
Chmygal met with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and is scheduled to meet with Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Germany “will continue to be on Ukraine’s side reliably,” Steinmeir told the Ukrainian leader, according to the German president’s spokeswoman.
Chmygal acknowledged Germany’s efforts to supply kyiv with weapons, but asked that more be sent. “We want to receive more weapons and equipment as quickly as possible,” he said, stressing the need for modern tanks.
According to the Ukrainian politician, Germany announced the delivery of “Iris-T anti-aircraft defense systems”. Chmygal is also planning to ask Germany to label the atrocities committed by the Russians as “genocide”. “It is Russian policy: they kill civilians in Ukraine only because they are Ukrainians,” he said during the meeting.
(With information from Reuters and AFP)
