
UKRAINE - Ukraine's biggest private energy provider is living in permanent crisis mode because of Russian attacks on the grid,...

its chief executive has told the BBC. Most of Ukraine is suffering from lengthy power cuts as temperatures drop and Maxim Timchenko, whose company DTEK provides power for 5.6 million Ukrainians, says the intensity of strikes has been so frequent "we just don't have time to recover". President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that Russia knew the winter cold could become one of its most dangerous weapons. "Every night Ukrainian parents hold their children in basements and shelters hoping our air defence will hold," he told the Dutch parliament. As the fourth anniversary of Russia's full scale invasion approaches, Maxim Timchenko says Russia has repeatedly targeted DTEK's energy grid with "waves of drones, cruise and ballistic missiles" and his company has found it difficult to cope. Tens of thousands of people in the southern city of Odesa have been without electricity for three days this week, following a co-ordinated Russian attack. (BBC)

