KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — An overnight offensive by Russian forces left more than 100,000 homes without power in northern Ukraine and cut off water supplies to the regional capital, Ukrainian authorities said Saturday, while civilian casualties soared in the country’s fighting-hit east.
The northern region of Sumy, which borders Russia, was plunged into darkness after a Russian attack late on Friday damaged energy infrastructure, Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said. Hours later, Ukrainian state television reported that a Russian drone had struck the regional capital, also called Sumy, destroying a power line that supplies water to a pumping system, cutting off water supplies.
Russia’s state news agency RIA, citing a local pro-Kremlin “underground” leader, said Moscow’s forces struck a rocket-propelled grenade manufacturing factory in the city, which had a pre-war population of more than 256,000. The report did not specify what weapon was used and the claim could not be independently verified. Ukrainian media reported that explosions rocked the city early Saturday morning as air raid sirens were sounded.
In the eastern Donetsk region, Russian forces shelled the area on Friday and overnight, killing 11 civilians and wounding 43, local governor Vadim Filashkin reported Saturday. Five people were killed in the town of Seridove, southeast of the eastern city of Pokrovsk, a frontline conflict zone. The Ukrainian General Staff said Saturday morning that Ukrainian and Russian forces had clashed 45 times near Pokrovsk the previous day.
Three more people were killed in Chasiv Yar, a strategic town in Donetsk region that was reduced to rubble by months of Russian attacks, Filashkin said.
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A Ukrainian military spokesman told The Associated Press on Thursday that Ukrainian forces had withdrawn from the area outside Khashiv Yar. The town’s high ground makes it strategically important, and military analysts say its fall would endanger nearby cities. It could also jeopardize Ukraine’s vital supply routes and bring Russia closer to its goal of taking control of the entire Donetsk region.
According to the Ukrainian General Staff, Russian forces carried out six rocket attacks and 55 airstrikes across Ukraine on Friday and overnight, using more than 70 “glide bombs” – modified Soviet-era weapons that have wreaked devastation in the country in recent weeks.
In Russia, Ukrainian forces shelled a border town in the southern Belgorod region overnight, wounding two civilians, the region’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, reported.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces shot down a total of eight drones overnight over the southern Kursk and Belgorod regions.
In Krasnodar Oblast, bordering the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula, local authorities reported damage from wreckage from a drone that fell overnight, sparking a fire at an oil depot, burning fuel tanks elsewhere and damaging a mobile phone tower. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
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