Kiev mayor calls on residents to brace for harsh winter amid gas shortages

The mayor of Kiev, Ukraine’s capital city, has called on the residents to brace up for a cold winter, warning of interruptions in gas and electricity supply amid the simmering war.

In an interview with a local media outlet, Vitalii Klychko said he does not want to “reassure” people that “everything will be fine”, pointing to “harsh realities” in the war-torn country.

He said the gas will be made available in the capital city but urged people to be prepared for “different scenarios” amid the war that is now into its sixth month.

“Gas is the responsibility of the government; they have given us assurances that there will be enough gas for the population and that it will not become more expensive,” Klychko was quoted as saying.

“This is the expectation. But we cannot rule out that there may be acts of terrorism, attacks on natural gas gate stations. We also take this scenario into account,” he hastened to add.

Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine in late February, following Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements and Moscow’s recognition of the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in east Ukraine.

At the time, Russian President Vladimir Putin said one of the goals of what he called a “special military operation” was to “de-Nazify” Ukraine.

Over the past six months, Russian forces have seized large swathes of the country, with Western countries imposing unprecedented sanctions on Moscow.

Ukraine evacuates thousands from Donetsk ahead of winter

Ukraine says it has evacuated at least 3,000 people from the eastern region of Donetsk in the last six days, as part of compulsory evacuations ahead of winter.

The raging war has resulted in major disruptions in the global energy market as Russia remains a major producer and exporter of both oil and natural gas.

The Kiev mayor said they have bought generators and fuel for them, saying the first priority will be hospitals, kindergartens, and schools.

“We will do everything possible and impossible that is up to us so that homes can be kept warm,” he said in the interview.

“But I ask everyone to prepare warm clothes to be worn at home and warm blankets because we cannot rule out that the temperature in homes will be several degrees below normal. The norm is 21 degrees, but it may have to be 19° or 18°."

Klychko also warned that "there may be power outages", but added that the authorities will do everything they can to ensure this does not happen.

"If there are power outages, we have generators. If there is no heating or no gas, we have reserves of fuel oil. We will be able to function autonomously for a while. But this would be for a fairly short period of time to allow a solution for the problem to be found," he noted.

Last week, at least 3,000 people were evacuated from the eastern region of Donetsk, as part of compulsory evacuations ahead of the biting winter season.

The deputy head of the Ukrainian president's office, Kyrylo Timoshenko, said that among those evacuated were "almost 600 children and 1,400 women."

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