From towns near frontline battlefields to high-rises in the capital, Ukrainians were trying to conserve energy as President Volodymyr Zelensky warned on Tuesday that Russian attacks over the past eight days have destroyed 30 per cent of Ukraine’s power stations and caused “massive blackouts across the country.”

Russian strikes have raised concerns that attacks on key infrastructure will bring misery as winter approaches. On Tuesday, blasts hit a district on the eastern shore of the Dnipro river in Kyiv according to the mayor, along with cities in the north and centre of the country.

The attack on Kyiv killed two and knocked out electricity and water in parts of the city, officials said and came one day after Russia struck the city with exploding Iranian-made drones, apparently targeting electricity and heating facilities.

In Kyiv, lights flickered across the city just after 9 am, and residents living in the city’s eastern reaches said they had heard an explosion. The mayor, Vitaly Klitschko, said that an “object of critical infrastructure” had been struck. Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a senior official in Zelensky’soffice, said that at least three strikes had hit an energy site, resulting in “serious damage”.

By mid-morning, people in Kyiv were lining up at stores to fill bottles with fresh water, and electricity suppliers warned that the city would experience blackouts while repairs were underway.

Even as Russia’s forces lose ground on the battlefield amid Ukrainian counter-offensives in the east and south, Moscow has escalated its aerial bombardment of Ukrainian cities.

New York Times News Service