Ukraine is not planning further blackouts unless there are further hits to infrastructure as it has managed to build up some electricity reserves, the country’s energy minister said yesterday, after months of power outages caused by Russian bombing.

“There will be no restrictions on electrification, provided that no strikes are made by the Russian Federation on infrastructure facilities,” the energy minister said Herman Halushenko via Telegram. “The interruptions will only take place for the purpose of repairing damages.”

After many defeats on the battlefields and the scaling down of its troops’ operation in eastern and southern Ukraine, Russia in October began bombing the country’s energy infrastructure, leaving millions of people without power and heating for days at a time.

The temperature in the winter months often drops well below freezing in most of Ukraine. Halushenko acknowledged that this heating season was extremely difficult.

“But our engineers managed to maintain the energy system and, for the third week in a row, electricity production has ensured the coverage of consumption needs, we have reserves,” Halushenko added.

Ukraine, which does not produce its own power generators, has imported and received thousands over the past year, with the US pledging an additional $10 billion on Friday to meet Kiev’s energy needs.

At the same time, the head of the state network management company Ukrenergo, Mr Volodymyr Kudrytskyisaid that the work to repair the damage caused to infrastructure in the city of Odessa earlier this month has been completed.

“Starting tonight, there is more light in Odessa,” Kudrytsky wrote on Facebook. “The crews that worked to restore the networks are moving to other facilities.”

On February 4, a fire at an overloaded power station left hundreds of thousands of residents without power.