Lights go out in Ukraine as Russia launches 'massive' strike

Hundreds of thousands of radical successful cardinal and occidental Ukraine woke up connected Saturday to powerfulness outages and periodic bursts of gunfire, arsenic Ukrainian aerial defence tried to sprout down drones and incoming missiles.

Russia has intensified its strikes connected powerfulness stations, h2o proviso systems and different cardinal infrastructure crossed the country, the latest signifier of the warfare arsenic it nears the eight-month mark.

Ukraine's aerial unit said successful a connection Saturday that Russia had launched "a monolithic rocket attack" targeting "critical infrastructure," hours aft aerial raid sirens blared crossed the country. It said that it had downed 18 retired of 33 cruise missiles launched from aerial and sea.

"Several rockets" targeting the superior were changeable down connected Saturday morning, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said connected the Telegram messaging service.

Similar reports were made by the governors of six occidental and cardinal provinces, arsenic good arsenic the confederate Odesa portion connected the Black Sea.

The statesmanlike bureau said successful its greeting connection that 5 explosive-laden drones were downed successful the cardinal Cherkasy portion southeast of Kyiv.

The occidental metropolis of Khmelnytskyi, which straddles the Bug stream and was location to immoderate 275,000 radical earlier the war, was near with nary electricity, soon aft section media reported respective large explosions.

The metropolis assembly urged section residents to store water, "in lawsuit it's besides gone wrong an hour," successful a societal media station connected Saturday.

The politician of Lutsk, a metropolis of 215,000 successful Ukraine's acold west, made a akin entreaty connected Telegram connected Saturday. Power successful Lutsk had been partially knocked retired aft Russian missiles slammed into section vigor facilities, helium said.

The cardinal metropolis of Uman, a cardinal pilgrimage halfway for Hasidic Jews which counted immoderate 100,000 residents earlier the war, was besides plunged into acheronian aft a rocket deed a adjacent powerfulness station, determination authorities said connected Telegram.

In the superior and 4 surrounding regions, including Cherkasy, rolling blackouts came into effect connected Saturday greeting successful effect to the reduced powerfulness supplies. The authorities vigor institution Ukrenergo continued to impulse each Ukrainians to conserve energy.

Earlier this week, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called connected consumers to curb their powerfulness usage betwixt 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. daily, and debar utilizing energy-guzzling appliances specified arsenic electrical heaters.

Over the past 2 weeks, Moscow has accrued its attacks connected cardinal civilian infrastructure crossed Ukraine. About 40% of the country's electrical powerfulness strategy has been severely damaged, officials said. Zelenskyy said earlier successful the week that 30% of Ukraine's powerfulness stations person been destroyed since Oct. 10.