President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, at which resilience plans were approved for all regions and regional centers, except Kyiv.
The president announced this on social media.
Zelenskyy heard reports from all representatives of the regions and largest cities.
According to him, the experience of this winter will become the basis for further decisions: updating protection for infrastructure, logistics, major energy facilities, restoring facilities after Russian strikes, and providing additional energy capabilities.
“The National Security and Defense Council approved resilience plans for all Ukrainian regions and regional cities, except Kyiv, which was given additional time to prepare relevant substantive documents. Today, Kyiv was not ready, as it was for this winter. We need to have time to prepare and complete every task by the next one,” the president said.
Zelenskyy emphasized that every city, every community must be prepared for any scenario for next winter and for real support from people.
“The Government of Ukraine, in particular the Ministry of Defense, the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have received the necessary tasks and will help the regions prepare,” he said.
Energy attacks in Ukraine
Since January 14, on the instructions of President Volodymyr Zelensky, a state of emergency has been in effect in Ukraine's energy sector amid Russian strikes and worsening weather conditions.
On February 18, the head of the Ministry of Energy, Denys Shmyhal, said that Kyiv had proposed to its partners to create an Energy Task Force — a unified coordination architecture to help Ukraine restore its energy sector after the Russian strikes.
On January 23, Shmyhal reported that the situation in the energy system is the most difficult since the start of the full-scale war. According to him, more than 50,000 specialists are involved in repairs, and the state is strengthening the protection of critical infrastructure with air defense and electronic warfare means.
Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko announced on the same day that international partners had announced their intention to provide Ukraine with new assistance packages that would include over 6,000 units of large energy equipment to stabilize the system.
On the morning of January 31, a large-scale technological disruption occurred in Ukraine's power system, causing cascading power outages in a number of regions. As a result, the Kyiv metro was temporarily suspended, and heat and water supply disruptions were recorded in the regions.
According to the Minister of Energy, at 10:42, the 400 kV power transmission line between the power systems of Romania and Moldova and the 750 kV line between the western and central parts of Ukraine simultaneously went down, which led to the activation of automatic protections, the unloading of nuclear power plant units and the introduction of emergency outage schedules in Kyiv, Kyiv, Zhytomyr and Kharkiv regions. The versions of a cyberattack or external interference have not been confirmed, the preliminary cause is icing of lines and equipment.
The most difficult situation was in the capital and several regions. In Kyiv, the metro and escalators were stopped due to a power outage, and water and heat supply disruptions were recorded; some systems were switched to backup power. Similar problems arose in Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Kirovohrad, Khmelnytskyi, Vinnytsia, Mykolaiv, and Odessa regions, where emergency or hourly shutdowns were introduced and disruptions in the operation of transport and utilities were recorded.