Ukraine is evacuating cities now uninhabitable without heating and electricity

Ukrainians have been warned to prepare for a “life-threatening” winter after Russian artillery strikes left millions without power and hospitals unable to function properly.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy used his nightly address to urge people to save energy, especially in hard-hit areas like Kyiv, Vinnytsia in the south-west, Sumy in the north and Odessa on the Black Sea.

Authorities have started evacuating residents from recently liberated parts of Kherson and Mykolaiv amid fears that lack of heat, electricity and water will make living conditions too difficult.

The World Health Organization has issued a chilling warning about the human impact of the energy crisis.

dr Hans Henri Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, said: “This winter will be life-threatening for millions of people in Ukraine.

“Attacks on health and energy infrastructure mean that hundreds of hospitals and health facilities are no longer fully operational due to lack of fuel, water and electricity.”

Sergey Kovalenko, the head of YASNO, which supplies Kyiv with energy, said daily power outages across the country are likely to last until at least March.

“Get some warm clothes and blankets, think about options to help you wait a long outage,” he added. “It’s better to do it now than to be unhappy.”

Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said people living in Kherson can request to be relocated to areas where security and heating problems are less severe.

In a telegram message to residents – particularly the elderly, women with children and the sick or disabled – she wrote that the government would provide them with transport, shelter and medical care.

The evacuations come more than a week after Ukraine retook the city of Kherson on the west bank of the Dnieper and surrounding areas in a major battlefield win.

Since then, as residents and authorities head into winter, it’s becoming clear just how much energy and other infrastructure the Russians damaged or destroyed before their retreat.

Ukraine is known for its brutal winter weather, and snow has already blanketed Kyiv, the capital, and other parts of the country.

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