Some 50% of the energy infrastructure of Ukraine has been destroyed, said Ukraine’s Ambassador to Moldova Marko Shevchenko. According to the diplomat, the Ukrainian authorities are making effort to swiftly repair the local water supply and sewerage systems and seek assistance from the Western partners in strengthening the air defense capability. Winter will be extremely harsh for the people of Ukraine, but victory will belong to Ukraine, IPN reports.

The diplomat noted that even if a large part of the energy infrastructure has been destroyed by Russian missiles and bombs, the Ukrainian localities are not fully in the darkness and electricity is supplied to them for several hours. Even if the situation in Ukraine is difficult, a humanitarian catastrophe is not witnessed there.

“Almost 50% of the energy sector of Ukraine is nonfunctional. Several days ago, Moldova also felt the impact of the destruction of energy infrastructure. Hard work is now done to repair the installations and spare parts are being looked for. But there is no humanitarian catastrophe there for now, as our enemy expects. Currently, all the regions in Ukraine are in blackout only during a particular period of the day. Our army and diplomats are looking for air defense systems and also for technical and financial assistance for restoring the networks and generators as swiftly as possible. We have only one alternative – to advance much faster - so as to enjoy the victory as quickly as possible,” Marko Shevchenko stated in an interview with Radio Moldova.

According to the ambassador, despite the shortage of water and electricity, the Ukrainians do not want to leave their homes. The people who fled from the war return to the settlements that were recently liberated by the Ukrainian army.

“The authorities announced that the people who live near the border will be relocated to other settlements. If we follow the Ukrainian mass media, we see that the population flows are towards the liberated regions, not vice versa. The people come to the recently liberated Kherson region even if the water and power networks were fully destroyed, as the Russians mined everything when they left. The Russians left everything in ruins behind them. But opinion polls show the Ukrainians are ready to cope with the daily difficulties if they are at home and do not have Russians nearby,” said the ambassador of Ukraine to Moldova.

In almost nine months of the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian investigators determined that over 8,300 civilians were killed and 437 of these were children. Official data show that about 11,000 civilians have been injured since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.