Zelenskiy, Kyiv mayor trade blame as Russian strikes plunge city into darkness

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko traded fresh accusations on Friday of failing to prepare the Ukrainian capital for new Russian strikes that have plunged the city into unprecedented power and water outages.



The city of more than 3 million is entering another winter of attacks on energy facilities that are sparking long periods of emergency power cuts, as Ukraine struggles amid a shortage of air-defence weapons to down fast-moving missiles and drones.



The rumble of generators has returned to torch-lit streets, with temperatures nearing freezing and residents still waiting for centralised heating to return. City-wide water outages last hours, and are more frequent than in previous years.



Kyiv's bridges across the sweeping Dnipro River have also come under attack for the first time in Russia's nearly five-year war, snarling traffic. Outages have also frequently halted metro services.