By Megan Specia

KYIV — From towns near frontline battlefields to high-rises in the capital, Ukrainians were trying to conserve energy as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Tuesday (18) that Russian attacks over the past eight days had destroyed 30% of Ukraine’s power stations and caused “massive blackouts across the country”.

Russian strikes have raised concerns that attacks on key infrastructure will bring misery as winter approaches, and the United Nations’ human rights body has said that deliberate strikes on such civilian targets could constitute a war crime. On Tuesday, blasts hit a district on the eastern shore of the Dnieper River in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, according to the mayor, along with cities in the north and centre of the country.

The attack on Kyiv killed three people and knocked out electricity and water in parts of the city, officials said, and came one day after Russia struck the city with exploding Iranian-made drones, apparently targeting electricity and heating facilities.

In Kyiv, lights flickered just after 9:00 a.m., and residents living in the city’s eastern reaches said they had heard an explosion. The mayor, Vitaly Klitschko, said that an “object of critical infrastructure” had been struck. Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a senior official in Zelenskyy’s office, said that at least three strikes had hit an energy site, resulting in “serious damage,” without elaborating.

By midmorning, people in Kyiv were lining up at stores to fill bottles with fresh water, and electricity suppliers warned that the city would experience blackouts while repairs were underway.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said that it had launched long-range strikes Tuesday targeting “the military control and energy systems of Ukraine” and depots storing foreign-supplied military weapons and equipment, and that “all the assigned targets had been neutralized.” It was not possible to verify the claim.

Even as Russia’s forces lose ground on the battlefield amid Ukrainian counteroffensives in the east and south, Moscow has escalated its aerial bombardment of Ukrainian cities, including many, like Kyiv, that lie far from the front lines. The Kremlin has described the strikes — which have involved missiles and Iranian-made drones and have killed dozens of civilians since Oct. 10 — as retaliation for a blast that damaged a Russian bridge to occupied Crimea, an attack it blames on Ukraine.

Zelenskyy urged Ukrainians in his nightly address Monday to reduce their electricity use during peak hours to “enable the whole country to go through this period more stably,” and many residents and businesses have been doing their part. In his statement Tuesday, he did not specify which power stations had sustained significant damage.

On social media, shops, banks and other major retailers have posted photos of the measures that they are taking to reduce energy use, such as turning off illuminated signs. In the capital, some billboards are no longer lit up at night, and streetlights are being partly turned off.

Still, towns and cities across Ukraine are dealing with rolling blackouts or going without power entirely. The World Health Organization (WHO) warned this week of the potential for a spiralling humanitarian crisis, given that a lack of access to fuel or electricity “could become a matter of life or death if people are unable to heat their homes”.  Last week, Ukrainian officials said that about 30% of the country’s electrical infrastructure had been damaged.

In the central city of Zhytomyr, electricity and water services had been partly restored Tuesday after attacks struck the city, Serhiy Sukhomlyn, the city’s mayor, said on Telegram, noting that local hospitals were on backup power.

Ihor Terekhov, the mayor of Kharkiv, said that there were two explosions in the northeastern city Tuesday, and that an industrial site had been struck. Russian forces also hit an energy infrastructure facility in the region of Dnieper with two missiles, the regional governor said.

-New York Times