Ukrainians are now living in “terrible” conditions with severely curtailed access to electricity as a result of relentless Russian bombing, a former government minister and MP has warned.
Inna Sovsun was speaking the day after lethal missiles strikes across the country – including on the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital.
Harrowing pictures showed rescuers desperately searching the rubble of for more dead and wounded, a day after authorities say a Russian missile levelled a wing of the Kyiv facility during a massive daytime barrage that killed at least 42 people throughout the country.
Ms Sovsun was actually in the western city of Lviv on the day of the attack – but told Express.co.uk her staff had been left badly shaken, with huge explosions across the Ukrainian capital.
She said: “One of my advisors had his window blown out. His balcony door is destroyed. And it was literally very close to him because that his house was shaken and it was terrifying. And I think he’s, he’s still in shock.”
“I don’t know if it got to the foreign media, but I read the reports from the Ukrainian doctors who were there in the hospital at that moment. And there were some kids who have been prepped for surgeries at that moment when it all happened.”
Less well reported was the toll Russian strikes were having on the ability of Ukrainians to go about their daily lives, Ms Sovsun stressed.
She explained: ”There was some other targets which would be in here too which were the energy infrastructure the substations for electrical substations.
“I think that didn’t get into the news a lot because everybody was shocked about the hospital. “
She stressed: “The situation with energy is terrible.
“I’m getting messages from people saying that the Russians have destroyed three substations in the city over the yesterday’s attack.
“I did some interviews for the foreign media on Monday and they asked me can you do it by video?
“And I said, I’m sorry, I really can’t because there is no electricity here. So it was just a reminder of the conditions that that we are forced to live under.
“We don’t have electricity at home for between 14 and 20 hours a day.
“Just imagine what it means for an average Ukrainian to live his or her life.
“Even if it’s far from the front line, it’s terrifying conditions that we’re in.
“Three weeks ago it took me three days to finish one set of laundry just because I never had electricity that would last long enough for the laundry cycle to finish. This is where we are.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X that 64 people were hospitalised in the capital as a result of the attacks, in addition to 28 in Kryvyi Rih and six in Dnipro – both cities in central Ukraine.
It was Russia’s heaviest bombardment of Kyiv in almost four months and one of the deadliest of the war, hitting seven of the capital’s 10 districts, according to Ukrainian officials.
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