Ukraine war: Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko warns of evacuations in event of total loss of power
Kyiv’s mayor has told residents to consider leaving the capital in the event of a complete blackout.
Urging residents to “consider everything” including a worst-case scenario where the capital loses power and water, Vitali Klitschko said he could not rule out the prospect of a total loss of power.
“If you have extended family… or friends outside Kyiv, where there is autonomous water supply, an oven, heating,” he said in a television interview, “please keep in mind the possibility of staying there for a certain amount of time”.
“His task is for us to die, to freeze, or to make us flee our land so that he can have it. That’s what the aggressor wants to achieve,” he added, accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure.
In recent weeks, Russia has focused on striking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, causing power cuts and rolling outages across the country.
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The Ukrainian president said the country was braced for further Russian attacks in his nightly video address, adding that more than 4.5 million people were already without power.
“The terrorist state is concentrating forces and means for a possible repetition of mass attacks on our infrastructure,” said Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“First of all, energy.”
President Zelenskyy called on Ukrainians to endure the hardships, saying: “We must get through this winter and be even stronger in the spring than now.”
Kyiv was having hourly rotating blackouts in parts of the city and the surrounding region on Sunday.
People walk in a park during a blackout in the Ukrainian capital. Pic: AP
Other key developments
• Ukrainian officials are working to identify bodies found in mass graves in Kharkiv
• The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station has been reconnected to Ukraine’s power grid
• Russia is losing military aircraft more quickly than it can replace them, says the UK Ministry of Defence in its latest intelligence update
National energy authorities have warned of further planned outages but also possible further restrictions in Kyiv and the region around it.
Rolling blackouts are also planned in the Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Kharkiv and Poltava regions, Ukraine’s state-owned energy operator, Ukrenergo, said.
Sergei Kovalenko, CEO of YASNO, a major supplier of energy to Kyiv, said Ukraine is currently facing a 32% deficit in projected power supply.
“This is a lot, and it’s force majeure,” Mr Kovalenko said on his Facebook page.
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Ukraine war: What’s the latest on the ground?
As Russia intensifies its attacks on the capital, Ukrainian forces are pushing forward in the south.
Russian forces are reportedly preparing for a Ukrainian counteroffensive to seize back the southern city of Kherson, which was captured during the early days of the invasion, and have told civilians to leave for the city’s right bank immediately.
Russia has been “occupying and evacuating” Kherson simultaneously, trying to convince Ukrainians they are leaving when in fact they’re digging in, Nataliya Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s Southern Forces, told state television.
“There are defence units that have dug in there quite powerfully, a certain amount of equipment has been left, firing positions have been set up,” she said.
In October, President Putin signed laws absorbing four Ukrainian regions following so-called referenda in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, which were rejected as a sham by Ukraine and the West.
The areas annexed are not even under full control of Russian forces.
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In the Donetsk city of Bakhmut, 15,000 remaining residents are living under daily shelling and without water or power, according to local media reports.
“The destruction is daily, if not hourly,” said Pavlo Kyrylenko, the region’s Ukrainian governor.
The city has been under attack for months, but the bombardment has picked up in recent days.
Donald Trump has threatened Russia with more sanctions after a series of deadly strikes across Ukraine, as he said of Vladimir Putin: “What the hell happened to him?”
The US president appeared aghast at the conduct of his counterpart in the Kremlin after drone and missile attacks in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities left 12 people dead and dozens more injured.
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Speaking to reporters at an airport in New Jersey ahead of a flight back to Washington, Mr Trump said: “I’m not happy with Putin. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”
“He’s killing a lot of people,” he added. “I’m not happy about that.”
Mr Trump – who said he’s “always gotten along with” Mr Putin – told reporters he would consider more sanctions against Moscow.
“He’s sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don’t like it at all,” he said.
Ukraine said the barrage of strikes overnight into Sunday was the biggest aerial attack of the war so far, with 367 drones and missiles fired by Russian forces.
It came despite Mr Trump repeatedly talking up the chances of a peace agreement. He even spoke to Mr Putin on the phone for two hours last week.
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Hundreds of drones fired at Ukraine
‘Shameful’ attacks
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine is ready to sign a ceasefire deal, and suggested Russia isn’t serious about signing one.
In a statement after the latest attacks on his country, he urged the US and other national leaders to increase the pressure on Mr Putin, saying silence “only encourages” him.
Mr Trump’s envoy for the country, Keith Kellogg, later demanded a ceasefire, describing the Russian attacks as “shameful”.
Three children were among those killed in the attacks, explosions shaking the cities of Kyiv, Odesa, and Mykolaiv.
Ukrainian siblings Tamara, 12, Stanislav, eight, and Roman, 17, were killed in Russian airstrikes. Pic: X/@Mariana_Betsa
Before the onslaught, Russia said it had faced a Ukrainian drone attack on Sunday. It said around 100 were intercepted and destroyed near Moscow and in central and southern regions.
The violence has escalated despite Russia and Ukraine completing the exchange of 1,000 prisoners each over the past three days.
Donald Trump says he will delay the imposition of 50% tariffs on goods entering the United States from the European Union until July, as the two sides attempt to negotiate a trade deal.
It comes after the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said in a post on social media site X that she had spoken to Mr Trump and expressed that they needed until 9 July to “reach a good deal”.
The US president had last Friday threatened to bring in the 50% tariffs from 1 June, as European leaders said they were ready to respond with their own measures.
But Mr Trump has now said that date has been put back to 9 July to allow more time for negotiations with the 27-member bloc, with the phone call appearing to smooth over tensions for now at least.
Speaking on Sunday before boarding Air Force One for Washington DC, Mr Trump told reporters that he had spoken to Ms Von der Leyen and she “wants to get down to serious negotiations” and she vowed to “rapidly get together and see if we can work something out”.
The US president, in comments on his Truth Social platform, had reignited fears last Friday of a trade war between the two powers when he said talks were “going nowhere” and the bloc was “very difficult to deal with”.
Mr Trump told the media in Morristown, New Jersey, on Sunday that Ms Von der Leyen “just called me… and she asked for an extension in the June 1st date. And she said she wants to get down to serious negotiation”.
“We had a very nice call and I agreed to move it. I believe July 9th would be the date. That was the date she requested. She said we will rapidly get together and see if we can work something out,” the US president added.
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Shortly after, he wrote on Truth Social: “I agreed to the extension – July 9, 2025 – It was my privilege to do so.”
On his so-called “liberation day” last month, Mr Trump unleashed tariffs on many of America’s trade partners. But since then he’s backed down in a spiralling tit-for-tat tariff face-off with China, and struck a deal with the UK.
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Much of his most incendiary rhetoric on trade has been directed at Brussels, though, even going as far as to claim the EU was created to rip the US off.
Responding to his 50% tariff threat, EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic said: “EU-US trade is unmatched and must be guided by mutual respect, not threats.
“We stand ready to defend our interests.”
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