Russia has attacked the Ukrainian energy infrastructure with different weapons 60 times in recent weeks, Ukraine’s energy ministry said on Wednesday.
In a statement, the ministry said: “After each new attack, the need for energy equipment grows, and therefore the help of partners for the Ukrainian energy sector is very important.”
Ukraine fears Russia may have already begun a concerted campaign of attacks on the power grid for a second winter at war. Last winter, thousands of Russian drones and missiles targeted Ukraine’s power sector, causing sweeping blackouts.
Ukraine’s energy minister, German Galushchenko, who is visiting the United States, said the government was discussing with partners how to get through the critical cold months.
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Elsewhere, the EU’s executive has recommended the bloc starts membership negotiations with Ukraine once it fulfils outstanding conditions, Reuters reports.
“The commission recommends that the [EU] council opens accession negotiations with Ukraine,” said the Brussels-based European Commission.
It added the talks should formally be launched once Kyiv satisfied remaining conditions related to stepping up the fight against corruption, adopting a law on lobbying in line with EU standards and strengthening national minority safeguards.
Late on Tuesday, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said his country was “preparing our next steps” to join the bloc, including by strengthening its institutions, although he acknowledged that this would require work by Kyiv to “adapt to EU standards”.
On the battlefield, Ukraine’s military said its troops had repelled Russian assaults in widely separated sectors of the war and were braced for a fresh attempt to capture the key frontline eastern town of Avdiivka.
Russia is engaged in a slow-moving campaign in eastern areas of the 1,000km frontline. Ukraine has registered limited progress in a counteroffensive launched in the east and south in June.
Ukraine’s general staff, in its Tuesday evening report, said its forces had beaten back 15 attacks near Kupiansk in the northeast and 18 attacks near Maryinka. Nine attacks were repelled in and near Avdiivka, where Moscow launched the latest of several drives in mid-October, it said. – Guardian