Ukrainians in Kiev and six other regions were subject to planned power outages on Tuesday following Russian missile attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure.

Ukrenerho energy provider announced in Kiev that electricity would be switched off for customers on a staggered basis on Tuesday.

The Chernihiv, Cherkassy and Zhytomyr regions as well as Sumy, Kharkiv and Poltava are also affected.

The shutdowns are intended to prevent an overload of the power grid and will also give experts the opportunity to repair the plants damaged by missile and drone attacks and bring them back online.

Ukraine’s population has already been subjected to restrictions for several weeks.

People have been asked to curtail their electricity use, especially during peak hours. Washing machines and heaters should only run at night, if possible.

Vital energy infrastructure has been one of the main targets of the Russian military since it invaded Ukraine more than eight months ago.

Kiev argues that the power cuts are aimed at driving Ukrainians to flee to the European Union in order to destabilise it.

(dpa/NAN)