Russian attack on Ukraine’s Kharkiv cuts power to 30,000, officials say

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(Reuters) -Russian forces attacked Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, with guided bombs on Monday, knocking out power to 30,000 customers in three districts, local officials said.

Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said Russian forces used guided bombs to attack Nemyshlianskyi and Slobidskyi districts in the southeast and Shevchenkivskyi district in the north of the city.

Mayor Ihor Terekhov, interviewed on local television, said the three bombs damaged a hospital and hit power transmission lines. Nearly 30,000 customers had been hit by power cuts.

He said four people had been injured, most by flying glass, with some patients being transferred to different wards.

“Unfortunately, the hospital was quite badly damaged and there were patients inside. Four people were injured to various degrees and about 200 windows were smashed,” Terekhov said.

“Attacks are generally on energy targets – generation transmission, the power network. The aim is to have the power transmission network stop working.”

In recent weeks, Russian forces have concentrated their attacks on targets associated with Ukraine’s electricity grid and gas industry as winter approaches in the more than 3-1/2-year-old war.

A mass attack on Kyiv and other centres last week left more than a million households and businesses temporarily without power across the country. Water supplies were also disrupted.

In the city of Kostiantynivka in eastern Donetsk region, one of the prime targets of Russia’s slow advance through the area, a Russian drone attack on Monday killed two people in their car, the head of the city’s military administration said.

Russia’s Defence Ministry on Monday said its forces had captured two new villages in their drive through eastern Ukraine – one in Donetsk region and the other near Kupiansk in the northeast, a largely destroyed city under attack for months.

But the first corps of Ukraine’s National Guard said it had repelled a new attempt by Russian forces to make advances near the town of Dobropillia in Donetsk region.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other officials have reported successes by the military around Dobropillia, near the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk.

(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Oleksandr Kozhukhar; Editing by Mark Porter and David Gregorio)