A key power plant in Kyiv has been seriously damaged in a missile strike, Ukrainian officials say, in a Russian air campaign aimed at cutting water and electricity in populated areas.
Residents of Ukraine’s capital were told outages were possible as repair crews scrambled to restore power.
Kyiv region governor Oleksiy Kuleba said the strike did not kill or wound anyone.
A call went out from Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a key aide of Volodymyr Zelensky, who urged households in Kyiv and neighbouring regions to reduce their energy use during evening hours of peak demand.
Russia has fired on the energy infrastructure of several Ukrainian cities in the past week in the biggest wave of air strikes since the days after Vladimir Putin first ordered troops to invade.
The attacks, launched in retaliation to the bombing of a key Russian supply line, also hit residential buildings and other civilian targets far from the front line of the war.
Mr Putin said on Friday that Moscow did not see a need for additional massive strikes but his military would continue selective strikes.
He said that of the 29 targets the Russian military planned to knock out in this week’s attacks, seven weren’t damaged and would be taken out gradually.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a military analysis group based in Washington, interpreted Putin’s remarks as an attempt to counter criticism from pro-war Russian bloggers who “largely praised the resumption of strikes against Ukrainian cities but warned that a short campaign would be ineffective”.
“Putin knew he would not be able to sustain high-intensity missile strikes for a long time due to a dwindling arsenal of high-precision missiles,” the ISW said.
An earlier ISW assessment concluded the latest bombing campaign had diverted Russia’s slim stockpile of missiles away from the front lines in Ukraine’s south and east where Moscow’s forces are defending against a strong counter-offensive.
Kherson, a mostly Russian-occupied southern region that Mr Putin illegally claimed for Moscow last month, remained a focus of fighting on Saturday.
Ukrainian troops attempted to advance south along the banks of the Dnieper River but did not gain any ground, according to Kirill Stremousov, a deputy head of the Russian administration in Kherson, who reminded locals of Moscow’s offer of evacuation to Crimea.
In the neighbouring Zaporizhzhia region, governor Oleksandr Starukh said the Russian military carried out the strikes with Iranian-made kamikaze drones and S-300 missiles.
To the north and east of Kherson, Russian shelling killed two civilians in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukrainian governor Valentyn Reznichenko said.
