Russia blamed as some eastern Ukrainian cities plunge into darkness
Amid Russia's ongoing military operation in Ukraine, local Ukrainian officials have accused Russian forces of causing widespread blackouts in eastern Ukraine and elsewhere.
The officials made the accusations on Sunday, claiming that Russian troops had hit power generation facilities in the areas.
The regional governor of the Kharkiv region said Russian troops had "struck critical infrastructure" across the region.
"There is no electricity or water supply in several settlements. Emergency services are working to control fires at the sites that were hit," Oleg Synegubov said in a statement on social media.
The head of the eastern Sumy region, meanwhile, purported that cuts to electricity and water supplies had affected at least 135 towns and villages.
Dnipropetrovsk's governor also claimed that Russian soldiers had hit energy infrastructures in the central Ukrainian region.
"Some towns and communities are without power. The Russians have hit energy infrastructure," Valentyn Reznichenko wrote on Telegram. He, however, asserted, "We will manage. All services are in operation. We will restore everything as quickly as possible."
"They (the Russian forces) are unable to reconcile themselves to defeats on the battlefield," the official claimed, suggesting that Moscow was trying to reverse some reported gains that the Ukrainian army had been making against the Russian operation.
Russia began the "special military operation" in the ex-Soviet republic on February 24.
Moscow has said the operation was aimed at “demilitarizing” the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, which is made up of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics.
Back in 2014, the two republics broke away from Ukraine, refusing to recognize a Western-backed Ukrainian government there that had overthrown a democratically-elected Russia-friendly administration.
Announcing the operation, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the mission was aimed at “defending people who for eight years are suffering persecution and genocide by the Kiev regime.”
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