AT least three people have been killed in Russia's largest round of drone and missile strikes against Ukraine in several weeks.
Two of the deaths took place in the cities of Lutsk and Zaporizhzhia, while the third was in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
Across the country, at least 16 people were injured – one in Kyiv region, five in Lutsk, three in the Mykolaiv region and four in the Odesa region.
In Odesa, seven people were injured, including three children – a seven-year-old boy, a ten-year-old boy and a ten-year-old girl.
Ukrainian prime minister Denis Shmyhal said the strikes hit 15 regions over Sunday night and Monday morning and were targeted at the country's energy generating infrastructure.
He continued: “Unfortunately, there is damage in a number of regions.
“In order to stop the barbaric shelling of Ukrainian cities, it is necessary to destroy the place from which the Russian missiles are launched.
“We count on the support of our allies and will make Russia pay.”
He repeated recent requests by Ukrainian authorities to their Western allies to be provided with longer-range weapons and to strike deeper inside Russia with existing stockpiles.
The water supply in Kyiv was disrupted by the attacks, and power was lost across Zhytomyr, a city of around 250,000 people.
Blackouts and damage to civilian infrastructure and residential buildings were reported across the country, from the region of Sumy in the east, to the Mykolaiv and Odesa regions in the south, to the region of Rivne in the west.
In Sumy, a province in the east that borders Russia, local administration said 194 settlements had suffered a full power blackout, while 19 others had a partial blackout.
Ukraine’s private energy company, DTEK, introduced emergency blackouts, saying in an online statement that “energy workers throughout the country work 24/7 to restore light in the homes of Ukrainians”.
Elsewhere in Ukraine last night, UK citizen Ryan Evans died in an airstrike on a hotel in the eastern city of Kramatorsk.
Evans was working as a safety advisor for the Reuters news agency. Two journalists were also injured in the attack.
In neighbouring Poland, the military said its air defences were activated in the eastern part of the country as a result of the attack.
Meanwhile, in Russia, officials reported a Ukrainian drone attack overnight and on Monday morning.
Four people were injured in the central region of Saratov, where drones hit residential buildings in two cities.
One drone crashed into a residential high-rise in the city of Saratov, and another hit a residential building in the city of Engels, home to a military airfield that had been attacked before, local officials said.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said a total of 22 Ukrainian drones were intercepted overnight and in the morning over eight Russian regions, including the Saratov and Yaroslavl regions in central Russia.
