Ukraine says electricity and water supplies across the country have been hit hard after Russia fired more than 50 missiles at critical structures.
In the capital Kyiv, 80 percent of residents were without water and some 350,000 apartments had no electricity, Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said.
Power plants were hit in the northeastern city of Kharkiv.
Russia said its high-precision long-range weapons have targeted Ukraine’s military command and energy systems.
The country’s defense ministry added that all “designated objects have been hit”. The attacks come after Russia accused Ukraine of a drone strike on its Black Sea fleet in annexed Crimea.
Mr. Klitschko reported water shortages in Kyiv after an energy supply near the city was damaged in the Russian attack.
He said supplies would be partially restored within three to four hours
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He also said engineers would be deployed urgently to restore power.
The city administration said that “no hits were recorded” in Kyiv itself, “thanks to the efficient work of the air defense forces”.
Rocket attacks were also reported Monday morning from the central Vinnytsia region, as well as from Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia in the southeast and Lviv in western Ukraine.
According to reports, an installation of the Dnipro hydroelectric power station in the Zaporizhia region was also affected.
A total of 18 power stations – mostly energy producing – were affected in 10 regions of Ukraine, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said, adding that “hundreds of places in seven regions” remained without power. It was not immediately known if there were any casualties.
Residents in the attacked regions were asked to remain in shelters, fearing that further strikes might follow. They were also warned that “emergency power outages” were occurring across the country.
In neighboring Moldova, authorities reported that a missile shot down by Ukraine had landed in the “northern end of the city of Naslavcea” near the Ukrainian border. There are no reports of victims, but the windows were destroyed in several houses.
Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat told Ukrainian TV that Russia used its strategic bombers to carry out its “massive” attacks. The Ukrainian military later claimed that 44 of the more than 50 X-101 and X-555 cruise missiles launched from Russia’s Rostov region and also from the Caspian Sea had been shot down.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that “Russia does not fight on the battlefield, but fights civilians”.
Russia has carried out several waves of deadly missile and drone strikes in recent weeks that are believed to have destroyed nearly a third of Ukraine’s power plants and other power-generating assets before the winter cold.
Ukraine and its Western allies have repeatedly declared attacks on civilian infrastructure to be war crimes.
