Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko has given a bleak outlook for the Ukrainian capital's 3 million inhabitants, owing to the damages inflicted on the city's energy infrastructure by Russian shelling.
"This is the worst winter since World War II," Klitschko told the German newspaper Bild, in comments published on Wednesday.
Kyiv and its residents had to be ready for the "worst case scenario" of widespread power cuts at low temperatures, in which case parts of the capital would have to be evacuated, Klitschko warned.
"But we don't want it to come to that!" the former professional boxer added. Russia rained down missiles across Ukraine, forcing shutdowns of nuclear power plants and killing civilians as Moscow pursues a campaign to plunge Ukrainian cities into darkness and cold as winter sets in.
Overnight missile strikes from Russia that hit a hospital in the Zaporizhzhia region have killed a young child, the regional governor said on Wednesday. 'Pain floods our hearts — an infant who has just come into the world has been killed," the region's military governor, Oleksandr Starukh, wrote on Telegram.