Ukraine’s president says the attacks were on a “very wide” scale, but most of the missiles were downed.
Image source, ReutersAir strikes have hit critical infrastructure in central and western Ukraine, as Russia continues to target the country’s energy grid.
Sites to the south and west of Kyiv have been struck and power cuts have been reported across the country.
President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the “massive attack” but said most of the Russian rockets had been shot down.
Almost a third of the country’s power stations have been destroyed in a wave of air strikes since Monday last week.
An aide to President Zelensky, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said about a million and a half households were now without electricity.
The areas targeted by the latest attacks include the Cherkasy region, south-east of the capital Kyiv, and the city of Khmelnytskyi, further west.
Air strikes and power disruptions were also reported from Odesa in the south to Rivne and Lutsk in the north-west.
The national electricity operator, Ukrenergo, said the strikes may have caused more damage than intense bombardment earlier this month.
President Zelensky said: “The enemy launched a massive attack: 36 rockets, most of which were shot down. These are vile strikes on critical objects.”
Image source, Reuters
The deputy mayor of the western city of Lviv, Serhiy Kiral, told the BBC on Saturday that Russia’s strategy was to damage critical infrastructure before the winter, and bring the war to areas beyond the front line.
“The more successes the Ukrainian armed forces are having at the front the worse it’s going to be for people on the home front because Russia is going to do all it can to target civilians and to target critical infrastructure,” he said in an interview with the Newshour radio programme.
On Friday Mr Zelensky accused Russia of planting mines at a hydroelectric dam in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine, which is under the control of Moscow’s forces.
He said that if the Kakhovka hydropower plant was destroyed, hundreds of thousands of people would be in danger of flooding. Russia has denied planning to blow up the dam and said Ukraine was firing missiles at it.
The dam may provide Russia with one of the few remaining routes across the River Dnieper (called Dnipro by Ukrainians) in the partially occupied Kherson region.
Thousands of civilians have been leaving the city of Kherson in recent days, as Ukrainian forces advance. And on Saturday a new directive from occupying Russian authorities was released, renewing its appeal for civilians to leave “immediately”.
Across the border, in Russia’s Belgorod region, the local governor said two people had been killed in Ukrainian shelling.