Ukrainian authorities say Russian forces are shelling Donetsk with “the greatest brutality”

Ukrainian authorities said that Russian forces intensified their strikes in Donetsk, exacerbating already difficult conditions for the population after Moscow’s illegal annexation and the declaration of martial law in the eastern province.

Ukraine’s regional governor, Pavlo Kirilenko, said the attacks had almost completely destroyed power stations serving the city of Pakhmut and the nearby town of Soledar.

He reported late on Saturday evening that the bombing had killed a civilian and wounded three.

“Destruction happens daily, if not hourly,” Kirilenko said in an interview with state television.

According to local media, about 15,000 residents remaining in Bakhmut live under daily bombardment, without water or electricity.

The city had been under attack for months, but the bombing intensified after Russian forces suffered setbacks during Ukrainian counterattacks in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions.

Moscow-backed separatists controlled part of Donetsk for nearly eight years before the all-out Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February.

Protecting the breakaway republic proclaimed by the separatists was one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s justifications for the invasion, and his forces had spent months trying to seize the entire province.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly video address that while Russia’s “greatest brutality” was concentrated in the Donetsk region, “continuous fighting” continued elsewhere along the front line, which stretches for more than a thousand kilometers.

Between Saturday and Sunday, Russia launched four missiles and 19 air strikes, striking more than 35 villages in seven regions — from Chernihiv and Kharkiv in the northeast to Kherson and Mykolaiv in the south — according to the president’s office.

Russia has focused on hitting its energy infrastructure for the past month, causing power shortages and blackouts across the country.

The capital, Kyiv, was due to see alternating hourly power outages Sunday in various parts of the city of about 3 million people and the surrounding area.

Power outages were also planned in the Chernihiv, Cherkassy, ​​Zhytomyr, Sumy, Kharkiv and Poltava regions, the Ukrainian state-owned energy company Ukringo said in a Telegram post.

Meanwhile, the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant has been reconnected to the Ukrainian power grid, local media reported on Sunday.

Europe’s largest nuclear plant needs electricity to maintain its vital cooling system, but it has been running on emergency diesel generators since Russian bombing cut off its external communications.