Frederic Michel, with AFP 6:50 a.m., November 19, 2022

Almost half of Ukraine's energy system was destroyed in the clashes with Russia.

As kyiv has regained control of the city of Kherson, Zelensky is now asking for help from the European Union to get through the winter.

Power cuts are still recurrent in several provinces of the country.

Ukraine on Friday called on the European Union for "additional support" to get through the winter as nearly half of its energy infrastructure was put "out of order" by the massive Russian strikes that destroyed them. targeted since the beginning of October.

Russia has accused Ukrainian soldiers of having executed a dozen of its soldiers they had captured, denouncing a "war crime" the day after Ukrainian accusations of torture committed on a large scale by Russian forces in Kherson, a recently liberated city.

“Almost half of our energy system has been put out of order,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Chmygal told a press conference on Friday, calling for “additional support” from the EU.

Many Ukrainians are facing the onset of winter with little or no electricity and no hot water, as the first snowfall of winter fell across the country on Thursday, after more than a month and a half of bombardment on the country's energy grid.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said 17 provinces and the capital kyiv were hit by power cuts, but engineers were working to fix the power grid and outages were becoming less frequent.

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Russia accused of 'war crime'

Russia's Defense Ministry said on Friday it only targeted military-related facilities, and that a series of long-range, precision strikes carried out the day before had "hit exactly the targeted objects".

The Kremlin this week blamed the power cuts and their impact on civilians on kyiv's refusal to negotiate with Moscow rather than Russian missile attacks.

Mr Zelensky retorted that he did not think Russia was really interested in peace talks, suggesting on Friday evening that the Kremlin was "now looking for a short truce, a respite to regain strength".

Russia on Friday accused Ukraine of a "war crime", saying kyiv troops had "brutally" executed more than ten of its soldiers who had just surrendered.

This accusation comes after the publication on Russian social networks of two videos of about thirty seconds each, presented by these Russian sources as proving the execution of the captured soldiers.

kyiv had not reacted to these accusations at the end of the day, on which the UN indicated that it was looking into.

Ukraine has repeatedly claimed that the Russian army committed "war crimes" and "atrocities", notably during the occupation of part of the kyiv region in March but also in the regions of Kharkiv (north-east) and Kherson (south) recently taken over.

A study by the American University Yale published on Friday recorded 226 extrajudicial detentions and enforced disappearances of Ukrainians in Kherson during the Russian occupation, in what appears to be a planned campaign.

“These findings lend credence to a series of alarming allegations about the treatment of detainees, including deaths in custody, widespread use of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, looting of those imprisoned and sexual violence and gendered," says the study.

A quarter of the 226 cases recorded were allegedly tortured and four died in custody or soon after, according to the study, which indicates that the majority of these acts were perpetrated by the Russian army and security services Russian (FSB).

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Crimea, another issue

After the recapture of part of the Kherson region by the Ukrainian army last week, the lines are finally moving to the south of the country.

It is thus now well behind the front, in the Crimean peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, that the Russian army is carrying out fortification work, while its withdrawal from Kherson and the western bank of the Dnieper river now allows the Ukrainians to reach it with their artillery.

It is a question of "guaranteeing the safety of the Crimeans", assured Sergueï Aksionov, governor installed by Moscow.

Ukraine has repeated several times in recent months that it wants to take back the peninsula, by force if necessary.

On this subject, the White House reiterated on Friday that it was up to the Ukrainian president alone to decide on the opening of negotiations with Russia, rejecting any notion of American pressure on kyiv.

US media have recently reported that some senior officials are beginning to encourage Ukraine to consider talks, which President Zelensky has so far refused without first withdrawing Russian forces from all Ukrainian territory.

On the ground, the Russian army claimed to have conquered the locality of Opytné in the Donetsk region, in eastern Ukraine.