Ukrainians face first nationwide electricity outages after Russian strikes

Ukrainians are facing large-scale nationwide disruptions to electricity after officials sought to restrict supply to allow energy companies to repair power facilities that have been pounded by recent Russian attacks.

The president’s office told Ukrainians late on Wednesday that they should minimise their use of electricity from 7am to 11pm local time and prepare for temporary blackouts if this was not done.

There was no schedule announced for outages but major cities such as the capital Kyiv and Kharkiv in the northeast announced curbs on the use of electric-powered public transport such as trolleybuses and reduced the frequency of trains on the metro.