KYIV, Ukraine – Most of the shattered windows around the blast sites in central Kyiv have been wrapped in plastic or boarded up. Twisted debris from the damaged facades were placed in neat heaps in the doorways. And the shattered glass has largely been swept away, though tiny shards still occasionally creak underfoot.
While sporadic strikes still continue far from the front lines, Kyiv – a wartime capital that has largely been spared the worst of the war – has regained some of the rhythm of daily life after unexpected strikes Monday that left five people dead there and dozens more around the country. Saturday morning, residents were walking their dogs in a park where a huge crater had been dug during the assaults.
Air raid sirens sounded at times, but many people went about their day without rushing to shelters.
Russian President Vladimir V. Putin told a Friday press conference in Astana, Kazakhstan that there was “no need for major strikes, at least for the time being,” like those carried out last week. across Ukraine. But in parts of the east and south of the country, the shelling has never abated.
Residential areas in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia suffered at least 10 missile strikes overnight, according to local officials, and five “suicide bomber” drones were shot down over the Dnipropetrovsk region. Authorities reported no casualties.
A rocket attack in the Kyiv region on Saturday morning damaged energy infrastructure there, local officials said.
“All services are working and rescue workers are on the scene,” Oleksii Kuleba, the region’s governor, said in a post on social media app Telegram. “As of now, there are no casualties.”
Kyiv had been prone to power cuts since Monday, but they had mostly stopped by the end of the week. Ukraine’s national energy provider said in a statement that the new onslaught could again lead to power outages in the Kyiv region, some of which could affect the capital, as it works to restore service . Yasno, another energy provider in the city, said in a statement that the complexity of the attack meant outages could last for hours.
Last week’s Russian strikes damaged large parts of the country’s electricity infrastructure. Experts said it could take weeks to fully restore service.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his late-night address Friday that reconstruction work was continuing and power had been restored to most areas. However, in some cities and districts, power companies still use intermittent blackouts to save electricity.
“Fifteen objects that Russian terrorists wanted to destroy have already been completely restored,” Zelensky said. “We will restore all the others.”
Oleksandra Mykolyshyn contributed report,