Russian attacks leave thousands of people in northern Ukraine without power and water

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian strikes overnight left more than 100,000 families without power in northern Ukraine and cut off water supplies to a regional capital, Ukrainian authorities said Saturday, while civilian casualties rose sharply in the east from the country.

The northern region of Sumy, which borders Russia, was plunged into darkness after Russian attacks on Friday damaged energy infrastructure, Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said. Hours later, the Ukrainian public broadcaster reported that Russian drones struck the provincial capital, also called Sumy, cutting off its water supply by hitting power lines that feed its pump system.

Russian state news agency RIA quoted a local pro-Kremlin “underground” leader as saying that Moscow forces overnight struck a factory producing rocket ammunition in the city, which had a pre-war population of more than 256,000 people. The report did not specify which weapon was used and the claim could not be independently verified. Explosions rocked the city during an air raid warning on Saturday morning, according to Ukrainian media reports.

In the eastern Donetsk region, Russian shelling on Friday and overnight killed 11 civilians and injured 43, local governor Vadym Filashkin said on Saturday. Five people died in the town of Selydove, southeast of Pokrovsk, the eastern city that has emerged as a key front-line point. The Ukrainian General Staff said Saturday morning that Ukrainian and Russian forces had clashed 45 times near Pokrovsk the previous day.

According to Filashkin, three more people died in Chasiv Yar, the strategically located town in Donetsk that was reduced to rubble during a month-long Russian attack.

A Ukrainian military spokesman on Thursday told AP that Ukrainian forces withdrew from a neighborhood on the outskirts of Chasiv Yar. The city’s elevated location gives it strategic importance and military analysts say its fall would endanger neighboring cities. It could also compromise critical supply routes to Ukraine and bring Russia closer to its stated objective of seizing the entire Donetsk region.

According to the Ukrainian General Staff, Russian forces on Friday and overnight launched six rocket attacks and 55 airstrikes across Ukraine, and used more than 70 airstrikes. “gliding bombs” – modernized Soviet-era weapons that have devastated the country in recent weeks.

In Kiev, Ukrainian military personnel gathered on Saturday to pay final respects to a British combat medic who created a charity that delivers essential supplies to frontline fighters.

Peter Fouché died “on the battlefield” last Thursday, when his unit clashed with Russian troops, according to his colleague from Project Konstantin, the group of volunteers that has been transporting drones, vehicles, uniforms and food since 2022. for Ukrainian soldiers in the east. According to his website, he also helped evacuate 219 Ukrainian soldiers from combat zones.

At the funeral ceremony, Ukrainian soldiers carried Fouché’s coffin through Kiev’s iconic Independence Square, the site of mass protests in 2014 that forced the ouster of a pro-Russian president. Fouché’s comrades held back tears as they lined up to say goodbye. Others read prayers while raising Ukrainian flags and military insignia. Fouché’s companion, wearing a traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt, knelt to embrace the coffin.

A statement released Monday by Halyna Zhuk, Ukrainian co-founder of Project Konstantin, called Fouché “a hero” and praised his “relentless commitment to Ukraine and its people.”

Fouché, a west London native who turned 49 this year, helped build a field hospital in Kiev before starting Project Konstantin, according to the group’s website, and later enlisted in the Ukrainian army. At least five other 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 a border town in the southern region of Belgorod overnight, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its troops shot down a total of eight drones overnight over the southern regions of Kursk and Belgorod.

In Krasnodar province, near Russian-annexed Crimea, local authorities reported damage caused overnight by falling drone debris. The debris sparked a fire at an oil depot, ignited fuel tanks at a separate location and damaged a cell phone tower, reports said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

___

Complete coverage of the war in Ukraine: