Maxim Timchenko, head of Ukraine's largest private energy company DTEK, said that Ukrainians who can afford it should be ready to leave the country before winter sets in. He said this in an interview with the BBC.
He warned that another massive attack could disable the entire system. Ukrainians, according to Timchenko, should consider moving to reduce the load on the energy system.
“This is not an emergency where you need to evacuate immediately, but we need to organize everything so that consumption is as efficient as possible. If you consume less, then hospitals with wounded soldiers will be guaranteed to receive electricity,” he said.
Earlier, the Ukrainian government said recent Russian missile strikes knocked out almost half of the country's power grid.
On November 1, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that the authorities were preparing for the worst-case scenario in the winter – a complete lack of electricity, water and heat supplies due to Russian rocket attacks. More than 1,000 heating points for city residents are being prepared for this occasion. On October 31, due to massive shelling of the energy infrastructure in Ukraine, emergency power outages were introduced .
Against the background of the counter-offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the south of Ukraine, the Russian troops repeatedly attacked the country's communal infrastructure. As a result of the shelling, the reserve line that supplied the settlements of the Kharkiv region was temporarily out of order, which left the region without electricity. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that the infrastructure of the settlements of Veselaya Dolina, Dry Pond, Zaitsevo, New York, Kostromka, Pervomayskoye, Belogorovka, Kam, Stepnoye, Maly Shcherbaki, Belaya Krinitsa, Yuryevka and Mirnoye was damaged from air strikes and shelling of MLRS.