Mr Zelenskyy was speaking after Moscow shut down a main pipeline that supplies Russian gas to the continent.
- "Russia is preparing a decisive energy blow on all Europeans for this winter," he said in his daily video address.
- Mr Zelenskyy was speaking after Moscow shut down a main pipeline that supplies Russian gas to the continent.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told Europeans to expect a difficult winter as the Russian assault on his country leads to cuts in oil and gas exports by Moscow.
Mr Zelenskyy was speaking on Saturday night after Moscow shut down a main pipeline that supplies Russian gas to the continent.
"Russia is preparing a decisive energy blow on all Europeans for this winter," he said in his daily video address.
Moscow has cited Western sanctions imposed over its invasion of Ukraine and technical issues for the energy disruptions.
European countries who have backed the Kyiv government with diplomatic and military support have accused Russia of weaponising energy supplies.
Some analysts say the shortages and a surge in living costs as winter approaches risk sapping Western support for Kyiv as governments try to deal with disgruntled populations.
Last week Moscow said it would keep the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, its main gas channel to Germany, closed and G7 countries announced a planned price cap on Russian oil exports.
The Kremlin said it would stop selling oil to any countries that implemented the cap.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Sunday his government had been planning for a total halt in gas deliveries in December but he promised that his country would make it through the winter.
"Russia is no longer a reliable energy partner," Mr Scholz told a news conference in Berlin.
Finland and Sweden announced plans to offer billions of dollars in liquidity guarantees to power companies in their countries after Russia's Gazprom shut the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline.
Finland is aiming to offer $14.6 billion and Sweden plans to offer $34.2 billion in liquidity guarantees.
"This has had the ingredients for a kind of a Lehman Brothers of energy industry," Finnish Economic Affairs Minister Mika Lintila said on Sunday.
When Lehman Brothers, the fourth-largest US investment bank at the time, filed for bankruptcy in September 2008 with more than $884 billion in debt, it triggered the worst parts of the US financial crisis.
"The government's programme is a last-resort financing option for companies that would otherwise be threatened with insolvency," Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin told a news conference.
State-controlled Finnish power company Fortum, which last week had urged Nordic regulators to take immediate action to avert defaults even among smaller players, praised the proposals made by Helsinki and Stockholm.
"We appreciate Finnish and Swedish governments taking swift action to stabilise the Nordic derivatives market and support Nordic energy companies in time of crisis," the company tweeted.
"It's crucial to keep companies operational. Our discussions with the Finnish government are ongoing," it said.
British foreign minister Liz Truss says she would set out immediate action in her first week in power to tackle rising energy bills and increase energy supplies if she is, as expected, appointed prime minister.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, she said she understood how challenging the cost of living crisis was for Britons and she would take "decisive action to ensure families and businesses can get through this winter and the next".
"If elected, I plan within the first week of my new administration to set out our immediate action on energy bills and energy supply," she said.
"A fiscal event would follow later this month from my Chancellor, with a broader package of action on the economy."
Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant lost power, UN says
The Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine again lost external power, UN inspectors said on Saturday.
The last remaining main external power line was cut off although a reserve line continued supplying electricity to the grid, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a statement.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz awaits the arrival of the Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, 04 September 2022. EPA/HANNIBAL HANSCHKE Source: EPA / HANNIBAL HANSCHKE/EPA
The plant was seized by Russian troops shortly after President Vladimir Putin sent his army over the border on 24 February and has become a focal point of the conflict.
Each side has blamed the other for shelling in the vicinity that has raised fears that a nuclear disaster could be triggered.
An official from the Russian-installed administration in Zaporizhzhia said the situation around the plant had been calm so far on Sunday.
Speaking to Komsomolskaya Pravda radio, the official, Igor Rogov, said there had been no shelling or incursions.
Russia has twice accused Ukraine of trying to capture the plant in the past two days. Ukraine said Russia had attacked the area itself.
IAEA experts were expected to continue working at the plant until at least Monday, Mr Rogov was quoted as saying.
An IAEA mission toured the plant, which is still operated by Ukrainian staff, last week and some experts have remained there pending the release of an IAEA report.
The plant said on Saturday that the fifth reactor was switched off "as a result of constant shelling by Russian occupation forces" and there was "insufficient capacity from the last reserve line to operate two reactors".
Mr Zelenskyy has blamed Russian shelling for a 25 August cut-off, the first Zaporizhzhia was severed from the national grid, which narrowly avoided a radiation leak.
That shutdown prompted power cuts across Ukraine.
Ukraine and the West accuse Russia of storing heavy weapons at the site to discourage Ukraine from firing on it.
Russia, which denies having any such weapons there, has resisted international calls to relocate troops and demilitarise the area.
On other battlefronts, Ukrainian Telegram channels reported explosions at the Antonivsky bridge near the southern city of Kherson, which is occupied by Russian forces.
The bridge has been severely damaged by Ukrainian missiles in the past weeks, but Russian troops were trying to repair it or to set up a pontoon crossing or barges to maintain supplies to Russian units on the right bank of the Dnipro river.
Ukraine began a counteroffensive last week targeting the south, particularly the Kherson region, which was seized by the Russians early in the conflict.
