Russia says a missile strike that has killed at least six people across Ukraine and targeted energy infrastructure was a "massive retaliatory strike" for what they say was cross-border raid last week on a village in Russia's Bryansk region.
That raid, according to Ukraine was carried out by Russian citizens who were against the war.
The Russian missile strikes hit a series of Ukrainian regions, knocking out power to several areas, as well as cutting electric power to a nuclear power plant under Russian control.
The Russian attacks struck a wide arc of targets, including cities stretching from Zhytomyr, Vynnytsia and Rivne in the west to Dnipro and Poltava in central Ukraine.
At least five people were killed in a missile strike on a residential area in the western Lviv region, according to emergency services.
Footage from the area, some 700 kilometres from any military battlefield, showed a flattened house and badly damaged buildings nearby. Another civilian was reported killed in the central Dnipro region.
The Russian defence ministry said in a statement that it hit Ukrainian defence companies and other "military infrastructure" with a range of weapons including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles.
It said it had destroyed targets including drone bases and sites producing ammunition, and disrupted the transport of foreign weapon supplies across Ukraine by rail. It was not possible to independently verify the claims.
Residential buildings hit in strikes
The Ukrainian air force said Russia fired 81 missiles, including six Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, and eight drones during the early-morning strikes.
Ukraine destroyed 34 cruise missiles and four Shahed suicide drones, and eight drones and guided missiles were also prevented from reaching their targets, the air force said. The Ukrainian military cannot intercept the Kinzhal missile.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the new wave of Russian missile strikes on Thursday and said Moscow "won't avoid responsibility".
In a statement posted on the Telegram messaging app, Mr Zelenskyy said critical infrastructure and residential buildings in 10 Ukrainian regions had been hit overnight.
"The occupiers can only terrorise civilians. That's all they can do. But it won't help them. They won't avoid responsibility for everything they have done," Mr Zelenskyy said.
Strikes hit western and central Ukraine
Air raid sirens wailed through the night across Ukraine, including the capital, Kyiv, where explosions occurred in two western areas of the city.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said explosions were reported in the Holosiivskyi district of the city, and two people were wounded in the Sviatoshynskyi district, also on the west side of the city, and cars were ablaze there.
Smoke could be seen rising from a facility in the Holosiivskyi district and police had cordoned off all roads leading to it.
The alarm in Kyiv was lifted just before 8am, with the air raid sirens falling silent after some seven hours.
The governor of Ukraine's Odesa region, Maksym Marchenko, said on Telegram that a mass missile attack had hit an energy facility in the Black Sea port city, triggering power cuts.
"As a result of a mass missile strike, an energy infrastructure site was hit in the region as well as residences," Mr Marchenko said on Telegram.
Oleh Synehubov, governor of Ukraine's second largest city, Kharkiv, said the city and region had been hit by 15 strikes, with targets including infrastructure.
Kharkiv's mayor Ihor Terekhov said the city was left without running water, heating, trams and trolley buses, according to the Ukrainian public broadcaster.
Private electricity operator DTEK reported that three of its power stations had been hit. There were no casualties, but the company said equipment was severely damaged.
Preventive emergency power cuts were applied in Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk and Odesa regions.
Mr Klitschko said 40 per cent of consumers in Kyiv were left without heat.
Around 150,000 households were left without power in Ukraine’s north-western Zhytomyr region.
More explosions were reported in the northern city of Chernihiv and the western Lviv region, as well as in the cities of Dnipro, Lutsk and Rivne.
Ukrainian media also reported explosions in the western regions of Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil.
Russia has been hitting Ukraine with these massive missile attacks since last October.
Initially, the barrages targeting the country's energy infrastructure took place weekly, plunging the entire cities into darkness, but became more spread out in time, with commentators speculating that Moscow may be saving up ammunition.
The last massive barrage took place on February 16.
Nuclear power plant briefly loses power
Energoatom, the state operator of Ukraine's power plants, said the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant lost electric power supply due to the Russian missile attacks.
"The last link between the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and the Ukrainian power system was cut off," it said in a statement.
The nuclear power plant was successfully reconnected to Ukraine's energy grid on Thursday, Ukrainian grid operator Ukrenergo said.
It was the sixth time the plant was in a state of blackout since it was taken over by Russia months ago, forcing it to rely on 18 diesel generators that can run the station for 10 days, Energoatom said.
Nuclear plants need constant power to run cooling systems and avoid a meltdown.
Russia-installed officials in the Zaporizhzhia region had described the halt in electricity supplies to the nuclear power station from Ukrainian-held territory as "a provocation".
Fuel reserves for the diesel generators at the plant had been sufficient and were constantly replenished, the power plant's press service said on Telegram.
UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi appealed for a protection zone around the plant.
"Each time we are rolling a dice. And if we allow this to continue time after time then one day our luck will run out," Mr Grossi told the IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors.
Battle continues in Bakhmut
Late on Wednesday, Ukraine's military said it had managed to push back intense Russian attacks on the city of Bakhmut despite a Russian claim of control over its eastern half.
As one of the bloodiest battles of the year-long war ground on in the small city's ruins, Ukrainian defenders — who last week appeared to be preparing for a tactical retreat — remained defiant.
"The enemy continued its attacks and has shown no sign of a let-up in storming the city of Bakhmut," the General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said on Facebook.
"Our defenders repelled attacks on Bakhmut and on surrounding communities."
Ukrainian military and political leaders now speak of hanging on to positions and inflicting as many casualties as possible on the Russians to grind down their fighting capability.
Mr Zelenskyy said in a late Wednesday video address that the battle for Bakhmut and the surrounding Donbas region was "our first priority".
In a separate interview with CNN, he said: "We think that in the Donbas direction Russia has started its offensive. This is the offensive. This is what it looks like: a slow aggression, because they don't have enough strength and forces."
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, said his fighters had captured the eastern part of Bakhmut.
If true, Russian forces would control nearly half the city in a costly pursuit of their first big victory in several months.
"Everything east of the Bakhmutka River is completely under the control of Wagner," Mr Prigozhin said on Telegram.
The river bisects Bakhmut, on the edge of Ukraine's Donetsk province that is already largely under Russian occupation. The city centre is on the west side of the river.
Mr Prigozhin has issued premature success claims before. Reuters was not able to verify the situation on the ground.
Reuters/AP
