Zelensky criticizes Kyiv authorities for doing too little to support citizens without electricity

In his daily video address on November 25, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized Kyiv city authorities for doing a poor job rolling out “invincibility points,” or places with heat and electricity where people can take shelter during long power outages.

The points deployed at the State Emergency Service base and at the Kyiv train station are practically the only ones that are decently equipped; the other ones still need some work, to put it lightly. [...]

I expect high-quality work from the city authorities. Nobody will forgive anybody for incompetence at the Kyiv invincibility points. I ask you to take your jobs more seriously.

According to Zelensky, at the time of his address, 600,000 people in the city still had no power, and many of them hadn’t for “more than 20 or even 30 hours.”

The Ukrainian president also said that as of Friday evening, 6 million people throughout the country were facing electricity outages. He called on citizens to “continue conserving electricity” and not to turn on “multiple high-power electrical appliances at once” if they do have power.

On the morning of November 26, Davyd Arakhamia, the head of the ruling party’s faction in Ukraine’s parliament, said that “Kyiv residents are complaining about conflicting information about the invincibility points.”

On November 25, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that 400 “warming points” had been set up in the city. He said citizens can go there to “charge up their gadgets” and “drink tea” if they haven’t had electricity at home for more than 24 hours.