- By Emily McGarvey & Marita Moloney
- BBC news
Emergency workers attend to burning cars damaged by Russian missile strikes in Kyiv
Russia has launched missiles at targets across Ukraine, from Kharkiv in the north to Odesa in the south and Zhytomyr in the west.
Buildings and infrastructure were hit in Kharkiv and Odesa, with power outages in many areas. Attacks were also reported in the capital Kyiv.
Power supply to the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was also lost.
It comes as bitter fighting continues for the eastern city of Bakhmut.
Emergency services in Kyiv are on the scene of explosions in the western and southern districts of the capital where the mayor, Vitaly Klitschko, said the explosions took place.
Mr Klitschko said the cars were burning in the yard of a residential building and he urged people to stay indoors.
A mass missile attack hit an energy facility in the port city of Odesa, causing a power outage, its governor Maksym Marchenko said. Residential areas were also hit but no casualties were reported, he added.
“About 15” strikes hit the city and region of Kharkiv, with “critical infrastructure facilities” and a residential building targeted, regional administration head Oleg Synegubov said.
In western Ukraine, at least four people died in Lviv after a rocket hit their home, regional governor Maksym Kozytskyi said on Telegram.
One person was killed and two others were injured after a drone and missile strike in the Dnipropetrovsk region, according to governor Serhii Lysak.
The result of missile attacks on the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv
Nuclear energy operator Energoatom said a strike at the Zaporizhzhia plant, which is Europe’s largest, meant the “last link” between the facility and Ukraine’s electricity system had been cut.
Officials installed by Russia in the Moscow-controlled part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region said the interruption of power supplies to the power station from Ukrainian-held territory was “a provocation.” .
Other regions hit include Vynnytsia and Rivne in the west, and Dnipro and Poltava in the center of the country.
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion more than a year ago. Since then tens of thousands of fighters and civilians have been killed or wounded and millions of Ukrainians have become refugees.
The US Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, suggested on Wednesday that President Putin may have been planning to drag out the war for years but that Russia is not strong enough to launch major new offensives this year.
He said the war in Ukraine has become a “grinding attritional war in which neither side has a definitive military advantage”.
“We don’t see the Russian military recovering enough this year to make major territorial gains, but Putin is likely calculating the timing in his favor, and that prolonging the war including a possible ceasefire is his best remaining path to the end. securing Russia’s strategic interests in Ukraine, even if it takes years,” he said.
Ms Haines said Russia could resort to defending the territories it currently occupies, adding that it would need more “mandatory mobilization and third-party ammunition sources” to maintain even its level of operations in Ukraine.
Cars are burning in the yard of a residential building in Kyiv after the strikes
Ukraine’s military says it has repelled a heavy Russian assault on the embattled eastern town of Bakhmut even as Russian forces claim control of its eastern half.
Moscow has been trying to take Bakhmut for months, as both sides have suffered heavy losses in a grinding war of attrition.
“The enemy continues its attacks and shows no sign of stopping the attack on the city of Bakhmut,” the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said. “Our defenders repulsed the attacks on Bakhmut and the surrounding communities.”
