Over 400 critical power, heating supply infrastructure facilities damaged in Ukraine - PM Shmygal

MOSCOW. Nov 14 (Interfax) - Over 400 critical power and heating supply infrastructure facilities have been damaged during the crisis in Ukraine, Prime Minister Denis Shmygal said.

"In all, over 400 critical power and heating supply infrastructure facilities have been damaged. These are mostly boiler rooms," Ukrainian media quoted Shmygal as saying at a government meeting last Friday.

The most substantial damage has been caused in the Kharkov, Kiev, and Donetsk regions, he said.

In addition, a number of power units at thermal power and heating plants have been crippled, Shmygal said. "Over 2.5 billion hryvni is needed to resume generation at the damaged power and heating plants. The most conservative estimate shows that about 5 billion hryvni is needed to put in order facilities of electricity distribution operators," he said.

Scheduled power outages will be continued, Shmygal said. "They affected over 9 million people from October 10 to 31. This is an involuntary measure, which is necessary to preserve our power system's integrity and safeguard it from overload," he said.