November 26, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Russia "will pay" for a Soviet-era famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in the 1930s, as well as for its current war in Ukraine, a top Kyiv official said on Saturday.

Saturday marks the 90th anniversary of the 1932-1933 Holodomor, or Terror Famine. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin engineered the famine by removing food stocks from Ukrainian peasants, leading to the deaths of millions of people.

Other leaders around the world — including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — have marked the anniversary.

Meloni's office released a statement on Saturday, saying: “On the day of the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor, the starvation of millions of Ukrainians by Stalin's Soviet regime, our thoughts turn to the millions of Ukrainians, mostly elderly and children, deprived of electricity, water and heating in the middle of winter from the Russian bombings that are deliberately attacking civilian infrastructures.”

United States Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget A. Brink said in a video on Twitter that "Russia continues to weaponize food as it seeks to subjugate the descendants of Ukrainians who survived the forced famine."

National power supply company Ukrenergo said 75% of electricity demand is being met across Ukraine on Saturday.

However, “another 25% of electricity is still in short supply, so today, there is a consumption restriction regime across Ukraine,” the company said in a statement on Telegram.

Millions of Ukrainians have been experiencing power cuts across the country in recent weeks amid intensified Russian shelling. Last week saw some of the most devastating attacks yet on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, leaving millions in the dark.

Fifteen people in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson were killed and 35 were injured, including one child, from Nov. 20 to 25, according to an update from the Kherson Civil Military Administration on Saturday

“The enemy keeps shelling de-occupied territory round the clock,” it said.

The city of Kherson has suffered the highest number of attacks, with hospital patients and patients of the Kherson Regional Institution for Psychiatric Care evacuated.

Authorities in Kherson are urging residents to leave the recently liberated city, much of which remains without power, before temperatures plunge further.   

Russian troops renewed the shelling after Moscow's troops were forced to retreat from the west bank of the Dnipro River.

The areas of Zmiivka, Beryslav, Tokarivka, Mykilske, Antonivka, Chornobaivka, Bilozerka and Veletenske have also been impacted, Kherson authorities said.

Around 130,000 people in the Ukrainian capital remain without electricity supply following emergency shutdowns in the wake of Russian air strikes on Wednesday.

According to an update Saturday morning from the Kyiv City Military Administration, water supply has been restored across all districts with heat supply also being restored.

Cellular connection remains available in nearly all districts, though power outages may limit access, it said.

In an address on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said more than six million customers are still without power in Ukraine, though that is half the number of those initially cut off.

The regions of Kyiv, Odesa, Lviv, Vinnytsia and Dnipropetrovsk were facing the biggest problems with 600,000 consumers still without power, he said.  

More than 6 million customers are still without power in Ukraine, though that is half the number initially cut off by Russian air strikes Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a Friday address. 

The capital, as well as the regions of Kyiv, Odesa, Lviv, Vinnytsia and Dnipro face the greatest problems with power supply as of Friday, according to Zelensky. 

About 600,000 consumers in Kyiv alone are still cut off, he added. Many residents of the capital have been without electricity for more than 20 or even 30 hours.

Voluntary evacuations for residents from the recently liberated port city of Kherson are underway, with the first train carrying away 100 people, the Ukrainian government said.

The train is bound for the western city of Khmelnytskyi, according to the country's Ministry of Reintegration of Ukraine. Among residents who “took advantage of the free evacuation” are 26 children, seven bedridden hospital patients and six people with limited mobility, it said in a statement.

Authorities in Kherson are urging residents to leave the city, which is still mainly without power, before temperatures plunge further. Kherson has also come under renewed shelling since Russian troops were forced to leave the west bank of the Dnipro River. 

Evacuees will receive financial support, accommodations and humanitarian aid once they reach Khmelnytskyi, according to city officials.

Authorities say there are also buses running from the Kherson region to the cities of Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kryvyi Rih, where people will be “accommodated in specially equipped shelters and then evacuated to safer regions of Ukraine by car.”