Russia’s moves leave hundreds dead as energy and water shortages hit northern Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — The Ukrainian government said Saturday that Russia cut off power to 100,000 remaining families in northern Ukraine in a single day and cut off water supplies to a regional capital, crippling the country’s crisis-hit east. Civilian casualties increased rapidly.

The Ukrainian Energy Ministry said the northern Sumy region, which borders Russia, was plunged into darkness on Friday after power infrastructure was damaged following Russia’s advance. Hours later, Ukrainian network broadcasters reported that Russian drones hit the provincial capital, also known as Sumy, and cut off water supply by hitting power lines powering its pumping machines.

Russian environmental company RIA, citing a local pro-Kremlin “underground” leader, said Moscow’s military hit a plant producing rocket ammunition within the city in a single day, killing more than 256,000 pre-war Ukrainians. There was population. The file did not specify which weapon was worn, and the claim could no longer be independently verified. According to Ukrainian media reports, explosions rocked the entire city during the airstrike ultimatum early Saturday.

Russia continues to focus on Ukraine’s badly broken power infrastructure, causing hours-long blackouts across the country. Ukrainian officials have warned that the situation could worsen as the winter season approaches.

Russian shelling in the eastern Donetsk region killed 11 civilians and wounded 43 overnight Friday and overnight, local governor Vadim Fylyashkin said Saturday. Five people were killed in the town of Selidov, southeast of the Japanese city of Pokrovsk, which has emerged as a front-line hotspot.

Ukrainian general personnel said on Saturday morning that Ukrainian and Russian forces have clashed in Pokrovsk 45 times in the last generation. A few hours later, the Russian Security Ministry announced that its troops had captured a village about 30 kilometers (19 mi) east of the city.

According to Fylashkin, three more civilians were killed in Chasiv Yar, a strategically located town in Donetsk, which has been reduced to rubble under a months-long Russian offensive.

Russian forces have been attempting for months to eliminate good points in Ukraine’s commercial east, in an apparent attempt to lure its defenders into a battle of attrition, after Kiev’s forces launched a cross-border attack from the north. foiled, thereby briefly threatening Ukraine’s second-largest region. Kharkiv city.

Ukrainian military spokesman on Thursday instructed AP Ukrainian forces have retreated from the outskirts of Chasiv Yar. The city’s elevated location gives it strategic use, and armed forces analysts say its fall would put surrounding cities at risk. This would additionally compromise vital Ukrainian supply routes and bring Russia closer to its alleged attempt to capture the entire Donetsk region.

According to Ukrainian general personnel, Russian forces launched six rocket attacks and 55 airstrikes, and more than 70 strikes across Ukraine on Friday and overnight. “Glide Bomb” – Soviet-era retrofitted guns that have experienced destruction in the country in recent weeks.

In Kiev, Ukrainian carrier participants gathered on Saturday to pay their last respects to a British war vet who arranged for capital funds to provide vital supplies to front-line opponents.

Peter Fouché died on the front lines last Thursday as his unit clashed with Russian troops, according to an overview from Venture Konstantin, a volunteer team that is delivering drones, cars, uniforms and food to Ukrainian squads in the east through 2022. Is delivering. According to its online website, it has also helped evacuate 219 Ukrainian soldiers from war zones.

At the meeting ceremony, Ukrainian contingents carried Fouché’s coffin through Kiev’s historic Sovereignty Square, the site of a massive protest in 2014 that put pressure on a pro-Russian president against a monument to the country’s fallen defenders. Had inserted. Fouche’s colleagues held back their tears and said they would meet later. Mourners recited prayers while holding Ukrainian flags and armed forces banners.

Fouché’s wife, wearing a standard Ukrainian embroidered blouse, knelt down to attend to the coffin. Helena Zuk, who co-founded Venture Constantin and has a daughter with the doctor, called him a “true hero”.

“Every time he went to war, I would see him off with these words, ‘Thank you, my protector.’ And today, I can only repeat: Thank you, my savior,” she said.

West London native Fouché, now 49, helped set up a garden clinic in Kiev before starting Venture Konstantin, and then enlisted in the Ukrainian army, according to the gang’s website. At least five alternative Britons have been killed while volunteering in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

In Russia, two civilians were injured after Ukrainian forces shelled the city limits of the southern Belgorod region on the same day, its governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its troops shot down a total of eight drones in the Kursk and Belgorod regions in the south in a single day.

In Krasnodar province, after Russia annexed Crimea, the local government reported damage overnight from falling drone debris. Reviews noted that the particles set fire to an oil locker, set fire to gasoline tanks at a different location and damaged a cell phone tower. Immediate reviews of casualties have been inconsistent.

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