EU Ambassador: Life in Kyiv Growing Harder After Russian Missile Strike
The EU's ambassador to Ukraine, Katarína Mathernová, said many people in Kyiv lack running water and face hours-long power cuts after a Russian missile strike. Russia attacked Ukraine overnight with about 40 missiles and 172 drones.
Katarína Mathernová, the European Union's ambassador to Ukraine, has said that life in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv is becoming increasingly difficult. She made the comments on Facebook after a Russian missile attack overnight on 6–7 November, part of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine, which is now approaching its fifth year.
Scale of the attack
Mathernová said Russia launched about 40 ballistic and cruise missiles and 172 drones at Ukraine overnight. The capital and Kyiv Oblast were hit hardest. In total, 24 facilities were struck.
In Kyiv, ballistic missiles struck overnight. According to the latest reports, fires broke out in the Solomianskyi district, and residential buildings, a kindergarten and a non-residential building were damaged or partially destroyed. Six people were injured, including a 14-year-old.
The ambassador's account
She wrote that winter has not fully set in, yet many residents already have no running water at home, and the power goes out for hours, day and night. She noted that the hotel where she is staying has powerful generators, but many of her Ukrainian and foreign friends and colleagues from the EU delegation live in cold apartments, and some spend nights in unheated shelters.
The next morning, she said, these people turn up at the office to work on projects the EU funds across Ukraine or on Ukraine's accession to the EU. Mathernová said she wonders where they find the strength to get up and go to work after such a night.
She stressed that life in Kyiv does not stop despite the strikes. The nearly five years of full-scale war, she wrote, have shown how much people take for granted in peacetime: running water, a warm room, a full night's sleep — and how quickly all of it can be lost.
