Kyiv: three drone strikes on a critical infrastructure facility leave much of the city without water; Zelensky says Patriot deliveries will start “in a few years”

Much of Kyiv was left without water on the night of Friday, October 30, when Russian drones hit a critical infrastructure facility of the capital and the power cut they caused lowered the pressure in the water network. Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported on Telegram “three drone strikes on one of the capital’s critical infrastructure facilities”, which led to problems with the water supply.

The first alert of a strike on a critical infrastructure facility came shortly after 22:00 Greek time. Twenty minutes later the mayor said windows had been broken in a 14-storey apartment block in the Shevchenko district, at the level of the sixth and seventh floors, without a fire. Around 22:45 he wrote that pressure in the network had dropped because of a power cut at critical infrastructure facilities, while the electricity crews were trying to restore supply.

In his last update that night Klitschko described the map of the outages. The Obolon district had already got water back, while in Sviatoshyn, Podil and Shevchenko supply was running at reduced pressure. The whole left bank of the Dnipro and the districts of Pechersk, Solomianskyi and Holosiivskyi remained without water. The energy company DTEK reported a partial power cut in Obolon, Darnytsia, Desnianskyi and Podil, and the Kyiv Post noted that central heating in the city’s apartment blocks is scheduled to start on Monday, November 2.

Zelensky: “The targets are electricity, heating, water, bridges”

President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote the same evening that “the targets are electricity, heating, water supply, bridges” and that in the last fortnight of October alone more than 30 Russian strikes were recorded on very important parts of the energy grid. Earlier that day he had reported that Russian ballistic missiles hit oil-refining infrastructure in Kremenchuk, in the Poltava region, and that the Russians “did not take a single step of de-escalation in energy”, adding that Kyiv would respond “accordingly”. Kyiv has struck Russian facilities before, as in the Neptune missile attack on the Marinovka airfield.

In the same post the Ukrainian president called the State Department’s approval of the possible sale of 500 Patriot PAC-3 MSE missiles a “strong decision”, but noted that, on the current timetable, deliveries can begin “ONLY IN A FEW YEARS”. “We ask our American partners to find a solution right now, when there is a real danger and a real need to use PAC-3,” he wrote, accusing Putin of launching, ahead of winter, a strike campaign against the infrastructure that sustains life in the country’s cities and communities.

In an earlier post the same day Zelensky said “important negotiations” would take place in Turkey, without giving details, and that Kyiv expects to move in November to the talks formats that have long been under discussion.