A heavy snowstorm hit Ukraine overnight on Monday, the 27th of November, which brought strong winds, leaving more than 2000 settlements in 16 regions without electricity and more than a dozen roads closed to vehicles, citing Ukrainian officials, reports Reuters.
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on Telegram that more than 1 370 trucks and 840 cars were stuck on the roads due to the snow, which reached two metres in some places, adding that the worst hit were the southern and central regions of Ukraine.
The National Emergency Service has reported that it has
deployed more than 1 500 rescuers in large-scale clean-up operations.
Ukraine’s largest private energy supplier DTEK said on Monday morning that it had managed to restore power to nearly 250 localities.
According to Reuters, in a video address on Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said intense fighting was continuing in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Kharkiv while large part of the country was hit by “extremely difficult weather conditions” and thanked all those who had been working around the clock to help the people.
Bad weather has caused power outages in more than 2,000 towns and villages in 16 regions of Ukraine and has also blocked road traffic.
I am grateful to all rescuers, utility workers, the National Police, local authorities, and engineers working around the clock to help people. pic.twitter.com/5Md8dzk5sl
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 27, 2023
Since Friday heavy storms have been raging in Black Sea. Oleg Kryuchkov, a Moscow-appointed official in Russian controlled territory, said nearly half a million people were without electricity in the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia occupied in 2014, and on Sunday residents were urged to stay at home. A storm in Sochi washed away a railway and flooded houses.
A powerful storm hit #Sochi. It washed out the railway and flooded the first floors of high-rise buildings. pic.twitter.com/mU78TnAS7y
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) November 27, 2023
According to the Kyiv Post, Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, shared a video on the X (formerly Twitter) showing waves crashing on Crimea’s coastal areas. He mentioned that the storm washed away trenches dug by the Russian army, hit defence lines, engineering structures and firing positions in Yevpatoria, adding that winds reached 115-130 kilometres per hour along the coast during the storm.
A storm washed away trenches in occupied Crimea that Russian army dug out on the beaches.
According to information from Crimean media, in Yevpatoria the water washed away the defense line on the coast, engineering buildings and firing positions.
The speed of wind at the coasts… pic.twitter.com/D9fFoISSYK
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) November 26, 2023
On Monday morning, the capital Kyiv woke up to heavy snowfall and strong winds, along with an orange weather warning. City officials said that the country’s largest flag had been torn due to the weather, but that it was being replaced and would be hoisted again once the weather is better.
Read also: Putin: the “tragedy” of war in Ukraine must be stopped
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