Authorities announce additional payments to power engineers restoring facilities after Russian attacks

Ukrainian power engineers will be paid extra for restoring infrastructure after Russian attacks, said prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko.

"We are introducing additional payments to power engineers working in the repair and restoration teams of energy companies. This applies to specialists who go directly to the place of arrival in the cold and restore the supply of heat, electricity, water and gas," the official said.

Svyrydenko said that she had instructed the Ministry of Energy, together with the Ministry of Finance, to submit such a decision to the government.

"It is our duty to constantly thank the people who continue to work and restore power facilities in record time, despite the frost and shelling," the PM said.

Earlier, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, after talking to Sviridenko, reported that the government will propose how to "significantly increase" the salaries of such power engineers for each month of winter.

The prime minister and the president did not say how much extra money would be paid to specialists.

• On January 9 Russia launched 36 missiles and 242 drones at Ukraine. In particular, there were the second strike of Oreshnik in the Lviv region. According to the prime minister, the Russians deliberately hit boiler houses.
• That night, the occupiers launched a combined attack on Kyiv, killing four people and injuring 22. The strikes caused problems in the capital's power grid.
• As of the evening of the 12th, part of the right bank of Kyiv switched to stabilization schedules, while emergency power cuts remained in place on the left bank. According to the mayor of the capital, Klitschko, almost 800 buildings in Kyiv remain without heat supply.
• Zelenskyy warned that Russia may launch a new large-scale attack on Ukraine in the near future.