The Ukrainian government has implored citizens of the country who have fled the war to not return home this winter, so as to help ease pressure on the country's devastated energy infrastructure, currently reeling under wave after wave of Russian missile strikes.
"The networks will not cope," said Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. "You see what Russia is doing."
"We need to survive the winter," she emphasised, speaking on television.
Vereschchuk did not mince her words -- the Deputy Prime Minister bluntly informed the millions of refugees scattered across Europe that it was important to refrain from returning for now, because "the situation will only get worse".
"If it is possible, stay abroad for the time being," she grimly added.
Earlier on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told a conference on Ukraine reconstruction that Russian missiles and Iran-made suicide drones had destroyed more than a third of his country's energy sector.
Addressing the conference in Berlin via video link, the Ukrainian war-time leader said that Ukraine had yet to receive "a single cent" towards a fast recovery plan worth a total $17 billion.
"Russia is destroying everything so that it is harder for us to get through the winter," Zelenskiy told the conference, which was attended by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and other senior Western politicians and officials.
Since October 10, following a successful Ukrainian attack on the Kerch bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland, Moscow has launched a series of devastating salvos at Ukraine's power infrastructure, which have hit at least half of its thermal power generation and perhaps as much as 40% of the entire system.
Presidential advisor Kyrylo Tymoshenko said that as of Saturday afternoon, more than a million people across Ukraine were without power.
The two-week-old bombing campaign, an effort to plunge Ukrainians into darkness ahead of their country’s bitter winter, has focused more on the network nodes that are key to keeping Ukraine’s electricity grid functioning and providing critical services, rather than the well-protected power generation plants themselves.
This shift in Russian tactics has alarmed Ukrainian and Western officials, who warn that the attacks could inflict suffering on civilians, create a new wave of refugees and further erode Ukraine’s war-shattered economy, just as temperatures have been dropping and the bitterly cold Ukrainian winter draws ever closer.
It appears that although Russia’s invasion has been badly planned, poorly executed and absent any discernible and clear goals, Moscow's effort to turn off Ukraine’s heating and lights appears competent and effective -- which portends badly for the near future, as this war continues to show absolutely no sign of abating.
