The move comes as Russian forces continue to pound Ukrainian towns and villages with missiles and drones, damaging power plants and water supplies, in a devastating war nearing the end of nine months. Ukrenergo, the sole operator of Ukraine’s high-voltage transmission lines, initially said in an online statement on Saturday that planned power outages would take place in the capital and the greater Kyiv region, as well as in many areas around it – Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Poltava and Kharkiv. Later, however, the company released an update saying that scheduled outages of a certain number of hours are not enough and instead there will be emergency outages, which could last indefinitely. Ukraine has faced blackouts and water cuts since Russia began launching a barrage of missile and drone attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure last month. The attacks came after Moscow suffered a series of battlefield defeats in northeastern Ukraine and an explosion at the Kerch Bridge, which links occupied Crimea to mainland Russia. The region was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. Russia has denied that the drones it used against Ukraine came from Iran. But Iran’s foreign minister on Saturday acknowledged for the first time that it supplied Moscow with a “limited number” of drones before Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Hossein Amirabdolahian, however, claimed that Tehran did not know whether its drones were used against Ukrainian targets and declared Iran’s commitment to ending the conflict. Later on Saturday, Ukraine warned Iran that “the consequences of complicity” with Moscow would be “greater than the benefit”. “Tehran must realize that the consequences of complicity in the crimes of the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine will be far greater than the benefit of supporting Russia,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko wrote on Facebook. Al Jazeera’s Dorsha Jabari, reporting from Tehran, said Western signatories to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal claim Iran’s sale of drones to Russia is a violation of the deal, from which the United States withdrew in 2018. “Under the agreement, the Iranian government is not allowed to sell or import advanced military equipment or technology,” he said. Jabari also said that the said ban, which was imposed in 2007, expired in October 2020. “Iranian officials say the excuses put forward by Western powers are ridiculous,” Jabbari said.
Russian attacks continue
Russian bombing of areas of Ukraine continued until the early hours of Saturday morning. About 40 shells were fired overnight at the city of Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk Governor Valentin Reznichenko said on Telegram. Russian forces targeted the city and the surrounding areas with heavy artillery. Two fires broke out and more than a dozen residential and utility buildings, as well as a natural gas pipeline, were damaged, the official said. Elsewhere in the region, Ukrainian forces shot down a drone and another missile, according to Reznichenko. In the southern region of Mykolaiv, overnight shelling of rural areas damaged several houses, but there were no casualties, Mykolaiv Governor Vitaly Kim told Telegram. Russian forces also fired missiles into the southeastern region of Zaporizhia, which has been illegally annexed by Moscow and large parts of which remain occupied. According to regional governor Oleksandr Starukh, the attack took place shortly after midnight, causing damage to the buildings of three businesses and several cars. In the eastern region of Donetsk, also annexed and partially occupied by Russia, eight towns and villages have been bombed, including Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Porkovsky. Russian-installed authorities in Donetsk reported an attempt on the life of a Moscow-appointed judge of the region’s Supreme Court. Alexander Nikulin, who was on a judicial panel that in June sentenced to death two Britons and a Moroccan fighting on the Ukrainian side, was treated for gunshot wounds and is in critical condition, Kremlin-backed officials said. According to Ukraine’s presidential office, at least three civilians were killed and eight others wounded in the past 24 hours by Russian shelling of nine Ukrainian regions, using drones, missiles and heavy artillery. In the Russian-held Kherson region, where a Ukrainian counter-offensive is underway, the Russian military continues to abduct local residents, the presidential office said, with the latest cases occurring in the past 24 hours.
