Kyiv, Oct 22 (Reuters) – More than a dozen Russian missiles hit energy facilities and other infrastructure across Ukraine on Saturday, the Ukrainian air force said, with strikes causing blackouts in parts of different regions
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the Russian attacks had taken place on a “very broad” scale. He promised that his military would improve on an already good record of shooting down missiles with the help of its partners.
At the same time, Russian occupation authorities in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson urged civilians to leave immediately, citing what they called a tense military situation.
Register now for FREE, unlimited access to Reuters.comRegister
The Ukrainian military said it was making gains as its forces moved south through the Kherson region, taking at least two villages that Russian troops had abandoned.
Since October 10, Russia has unleashed devastating salvos on Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure, knocking out at least half of its thermal power generation and up to 40% of the entire system.
Shortly after dawn, officials across a swath of the region reported strikes at power facilities and power outages as engineers scrambled to restore the grid. Governors advised residents to stock up on water.
Parts of Kyiv suffered power outages until the evening. In one central district, shops were closed and traffic lights were out.
“The geography of this latest mass strike is very broad,” Zelenskiy said in his late-night video, citing regions in western, central and southern Ukraine.
“Of course, we do not have the technical ability to shoot down 100 percent of Russian missiles and attack drones. I am sure that we will gradually achieve this, with the help of our partners. We are already shooting down most of the missiles cruise, most drones.”
Ukrainian forces had shot down 20 missiles and more than 10 Iranian-made Shahed drones on Saturday, he said.
The air force command had earlier said that 33 missiles had been fired at Ukraine. Eighteen were shot down.
ELECTRIC OUTAGES ACCEPTED SOUTH AND CENTRAL UKRAINE
Reuters witnesses in the southern city of Mykolaiv reported a power outage lasting several hours, disrupting mobile phone signals.
A view shows a residential building destroyed by a Russian drone strike, believed by local authorities to be Iranian-made Shahed-136 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on October 17, 2022. REUTERS/Roman Petushkov/File photo
In the southeastern city of Nikopol, which is regularly shelled from Russian positions across the Dnipro River, local authorities warned that air raid sirens would go off as a result of power cuts. Instead, emergency vehicles driving around the city would warn of incoming aerial threats, officials said.
Zelenskiy said crews were working to restore electricity in the affected areas. Presidential adviser Kyrylo Tymoshenko said earlier that more than a million people were without power after two early morning warnings of air strikes.
Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said Moscow wanted to create a new wave of refugees in Europe with the strikes, while Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter that the attacks constituted genocide.
Moscow has acknowledged that energy infrastructure was targeted, but denies that civilians were targeted.
State grid operator Ukrenergo said the attacks targeted transmission infrastructure in western Ukraine, but supply restrictions were imposed in 10 regions, including Kyiv.
“The scale of the damage is comparable or may exceed the consequences of the attacks (between) October 10-12,” Ukrenergo wrote on the Telegram app, referring to the first wave of strikes on the power system last week .
The deputy head of Kyiv city administration, Petro Panteleev, warned that the Russian strikes could leave the Ukrainian capital without electricity and heat for “several days or weeks”.
In Kherson, which joins Ukraine with the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014, thousands of civilians have marched across the Dnipro River in recent days following warnings of an impending Ukrainian offensive to retake the city.
But Saturday’s warning was given with renewed urgency.
“Due to the tense situation at the front, the increased danger of massive bombing of the city and the threat of terrorist attacks, all civilians must immediately leave the city and cross to the left (east) bank from the Dnipro!” Russian employment authorities said in a statement posted on Telegram.
Ukraine’s General Staff said Ukrainian forces were moving into areas abandoned by Russian forces.
“Individual units of the Russian occupation forces continue to leave the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region,” he said in his evening report on Facebook.
He said Russian forces had abandoned the towns of Charivne on the west bank of the Dnipro and Chkalovo on the east bank, and that officers and medical staff had been evacuated from the main center of Beryslav, also on the west bank of the river.
Register now for FREE, unlimited access to Reuters.comRegister
Reporting by Max Hunder in Kyiv, additional reporting by Felix Hoske in Kyiv and Valentyn Ogirenko in Mykolaiv Editing by Ron Popeski, Diane Craft and Matthew Lewis
Our standards: the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.