Russia’s attack on Ukraine’s electricity grid likely violates humanitarian law: UN | Russia-Ukraine war News

Russian air strikes on Ukraine’s electricity generation, transmission and distribution facilities may have violated international humanitarian law, according to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU).

The report published on Thursday focuses on nine cases between March and August this year.

HRMMU said it visited seven power plants that were damaged or destroyed as a result of the attacks, as well as 28 communities affected by the strikes.

“There are reasonable grounds to believe that many aspects of the military campaign to destroy or destroy Ukrainian citizens’ electricity and heat-generating and heat-transfer infrastructure have violated basic principles of international humanitarian law,” the report said.

The first major wave of strikes came in 2022, a few months after Russia launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine in February of that year.

Attacks have continued throughout the war, although Moscow has stepped up its campaign since last March.

Each wave of strikes left Ukrainian cities without power for hours on end for weeks.

Ukraine says the targeting of its energy system is a war crime, and the International Court of Justice (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for four Russian officials and military officials over the bombing of public energy infrastructure.

Russia says the electricity infrastructure is a legitimate military target and has dismissed the charges against its officials as frivolous.

“Russia is trying to blackmail Ukraine with targeted attacks on its energy systems,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday as she announced 160 million euros ($178m) in frozen Russian assets. to meet Ukraine’s urgent aid needs this winter.

Russia has released about 9 gigawatts of Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure, which von der Leyen says is “the equivalent of three Baltic states”.

An oil refinery is being demolished in Lithuania and will be rebuilt in Ukraine, where 80 percent of the country’s oil and gas facilities have been destroyed, he said. A third of Ukraine’s electricity is also out.

HRMMU said the attack threatens Ukraine’s water supply, sewage and sanitation, heating and hot water supply, public health, education and the wider economy.

It highlighted a particular problem in urban areas, where many homes are connected to central heating and hot water systems.

The report said about 95 percent of residents in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, rely on underground heating systems whose output requires electric pumps to reach the upper floors of the building.

“Without emergency power supply, millions of urban residents could be left without heat,” he said.

HRMMU cited experts as saying that Ukrainians should expect power outages between four and 18 hours a day this winter.

‘Strict test yet’

Separately, the International Energy Agency made a similarly grim forecast on Thursday, with IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol saying the coming winter would prove “the toughest test yet” for Ukraine’s power grid.

The IEA report said that in 2022 and 2023 “about half of Ukraine’s electricity generation capacity was destroyed or damaged by the Russian military, and about half of the main network stations were damaged by missiles and drones”.

It warned of a “yawning gap between available electricity supply and peak demand”. The report urged European countries to speed up the delivery of equipment and parts to rebuild damaged areas and called for measures to protect against drones.

The latest attack

On Thursday, Ukraine’s national grid operator Ukrenergo said Russia had attacked power infrastructure in Sumy overnight, causing a temporary blackout in the northeastern region.

Nine regions of Ukraine were attacked by Russia overnight, according to the war-torn country’s military, which says it shot down a total of 42 drones and four cruise missiles.

Serhiy Lysak, the governor of the central region of Dnipropetrovsk, said the military fired one missile at his village, and said no one was injured there.

Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said six people were wounded in a Russian attack on the eastern city of Kupiansk, 8km (five miles) from the front.

Civil infrastructure, a school, a kindergarten and 10 apartments in the city of Kharkiv were destroyed, he said.

An educational institution was also damaged in Cherkasy region, said regional governor Ihor Taburets.

One elderly woman was killed and two other women were injured by Russian strikes in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, Governor Ivan Fedorov said on Thursday.

Russian forces have attacked the region 161 times in the past 24 hours, damaging infrastructure and residential buildings, he said in a Telegram message.

‘Winning Strategy’

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that his “Victory Plan”, which aims to bring peace to his country while maintaining stability and avoiding all “hard conflicts”, is now over after many consultations.

Zelenskyy promised last month that he will present his plan to US President Joe Biden, possibly next week when he attends the sessions of the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly.

While providing daily updates on the plan’s preparations, Zelenskyy gave few clues to its content, indicating only that it aims to create acceptable policies for Ukraine.

Zelenskyy said in his late-night video speech that there is no other way to peace, “no ice of war or any other tricks that could postpone Russia’s violence to another stage”.