Russia has hit two power stations in Ukraine’s Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions, the Russian defence ministry said on Telegram on Wednesday, keeping up nearly daily strikes on its neighbour’s energy facilities amid falling temperatures.

The strikes, which also targeted a cargo vessel at sea near Odesa, follow Tuesday’s missile and drone bombardments that knocked out power across swathes of Ukraine, a week before US-brokered peace talks were set to resume.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russia hit the regions of Poltava, Dnipro, Kirovohrad and Rivne, in addition to the capital Kyiv, Ukraine’s emergency service and local officials said in messaging-app statements.

Russia-held Crimea ordered power cuts after an accident outside the region, a Moscow-installed official said, and a drone attack near the southern city of Krasnodar next to Crimea set fire to a logistics hub of Russian retailer Ozon.

The cause of the incident on the peninsula Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014 was not immediately clear. The neighbours deny deliberately targeting civilians in the war that began with Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Last month, a Kremlin aide said Moscow’s attitude to three-way peace talks with Ukraine and the United States would depend in part on whether Ukraine launched a large-scale attack on Russia’s National Unity Day, a public holiday on 4 November.

Source: Russia hits power stations in Ukraine’s regions of Kyiv, Zhytomyr (The Straits Times)