Ukraine warned on Tuesday of an emerging \u201ccritical\u201d risk to its power grid after President Volodymyr Zelensky said that repeated Russian bombardments had destroyed one-third of the country\u2019s power facilities as winter approaches.
\nThat warning came as Russian forces claimed to have retaken territory from Ukrainian troops in the eastern Kharkiv region, Moscow\u2019s first announced capture of a village there since being nearly entirely pushed out of the region last month.
\nAt the same time, Russian attacks rocked energy facilities in Kyiv and urban centres across the country, causing blackouts and disrupting water supplies, just one day after the capital was bombarded with a swarm of suicide drones.
\n\u201cThe situation is critical now across the country because our regions are dependent on one another \u2026 it\u2019s necessary for the whole country to prepare for electricity, water and heating outages,\u201d Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the Ukrainian president\u2019s office, told Ukrainian television.
\nThe strikes in the early hours of Tuesday hit Kyiv, Kharkiv in the east, Mykolaiv in the south and central regions of Dnipro and Zhytomyr, where officials said hospitals were running on backup generators.
\nDrones also bombarded Kyiv on Monday leaving five dead, officials said, in what the presidency described as an attack of desperation.
\nIt was the second Monday in a row that Russia launched punitive strikes which military observers have said appear to be Moscow\u2019s response to battlefield losses.
\nZelensky described the repeated targeting of energy infrastructure as \u201canother kind of Russian terrorist attack\u201d.
\n\u201cSince October 10, 30 per cent of Ukraine\u2019s power stations have been destroyed, causing massive blackouts across the country,\u201d the Ukrainian leader said on Twitter.
\nHe said the attack meant that there was \u201cno space left for negotiations with [President Vladimir] Putin\u2019s regime\u201d.
\nHospitals on backup power
\nMany towns and cities in the Zhytomyr region west of Kyiv and parts of the city of Dnipro in central Ukraine were without electricity, while power was restored to the southern city of Mykolaiv after strikes overnight.
\n\u201cNow the city is cut off from electricity and water supplies. Hospitals are working on backup power,\u201d the mayor of Zhytomyr, Sergiy Sukhomlyn, said in a statement online.
\nIn the northeast meanwhile, Ukraine\u2019s second-largest city of Kharkiv some 40 kilometres from the border with Russia was hit with eight missiles, the regional governor said.
\nIn Kyiv, meanwhile, the DETK energy provider said its staff were \u201cdoing their best to restore electricity supply after the destruction of a critical infrastructure facility in Kyiv city.\u201d
\nThe mayor Vitali Klitschko said three people had been killed in Tuesday\u2019s strikes.
\nZelensky earlier said the fresh wave of nationwide strikes \u2014 which he said had damaged a residential building and flower market in Mykolaiv \u2014 was a Russian attempt to \u201cterrorise and kill civilians\u201d.
\nKremlin denies Iran drone use
\nFollowing the wave of kamikaze drone attacks against Kyiv on Monday, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba demanded EU sanctions on Iran, accusing Tehran of providing Russia with drones.
\nThe Kremlin said on Tuesday it has no knowledge of its army using Iranian drones in Ukraine.
\n\u201cRussian tech is being used,\u201d Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, referring other questions to the defence ministry.
\nThe defence ministry did however confirm strikes on energy facilities over the past 24 hours, saying it had used long-range and precision weapons.
\nIran has denied exporting any weapons to either side, but the United States warned it would take action against companies and nations working with Tehran\u2019s drone programme following the strikes in Kyiv.
\nWestern officials however said it was \u201cincreasingly evident that Russia is pursuing a deliberate strategy of trying to destroy heating, electrical networks\u201d and that Iranian drones were playing an \u201cincreasingly significant role\u201d in the conflict.
\nSenior presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak meanwhile called for Russia to be excluded from the upcoming G20 summit.
\nWith fighting ongoing across a sprawling frontline in east and southern Ukraine, its military said that over the past 24 hours it had shot down 38 Iranian-made Shahed-136 unmanned aerial vehicles.
\nSeparately on Tuesday, Russian investigators said initial indications suggest that the crash of a military plane into a residential building near Ukraine was due to a technical malfunction.
\nInvestigators said they were questioning the pilots of the Sukhoi Su-34, who managed to parachute out of the plane before it crashed on Monday evening into the nine-storey building, engulfing it in flames.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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