By Marc Santora and Thomas Gibbons-Neff
Russian strikes took aim at Ukraine’s energy facilities again Wednesday as explosions rocked Kyiv, the capital, and other cities, causing power outages in parts of Ukraine and in neighboring Moldova.
The blasts sent plumes of smoke into the skies as Ukrainian air defense systems worked to shoot down incoming rockets.
“We have confirmation of hits on critical infrastructure facilities in several regions,” the deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said in a statement.
From Lviv in the west to Kharkiv in the northeast, officials reported interruptions in electricity, water and other key services during what appeared to be the latest wave of assaults by Russia aimed at disabling Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and plunging the country into darkness and cold.
“The whole city is without light,” said Andriy Sadovyi, the mayor of Lviv. “We are waiting for additional information from energy experts. There may be interruptions with water supply.”
At least one Russian rocket hit what the regional governor of Kyiv called a critical infrastructure facility there, without elaborating. The city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said that some districts were without power and that “water supply has been suspended throughout Kyiv.”
He said that authorities were working to restore service but advised residents to stock up on water and urged them to stay in shelters.
At a hilltop cemetery in Kyiv, Serhiy Myronov, a Ukrainian soldier who was recently killed in action, was being buried when the first explosions rang out. A crowd of more than 100 people waiting to throw dirt into the grave looked up into the sky.
“Air defenses,” one woman said.
A two-story residential building was also hit, according to the Kyiv city military administration, and at least one person died.
Subway service was halted and people were being evacuated from underground trains after a power outage in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, said the mayor, Ihor Terekhov.
In the central city of Dnipro, traffic lights went dark and buses stopped after explosions were heard near the city at around 2:30 p.m. An hour before that, at least one cruise missile was seen flying north of the city.
Moldova, Ukraine’s western neighbor whose Soviet-era electricity systems remain interconnected with Ukraine‘s, was experiencing “massive power outages across the country,” the Moldovan infrastructure minister, Andrei Spinu, wrote on Facebook.