KYIV, Ukraine (AFP) — Several regions of Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, were experiencing power cuts after multiple strikes targeted energy facilities, local officials and agencies said Tuesday.
Many settlements in Zhytomyr region, west of Kyiv, and parts of Dnipro city in central Ukraine were without electricity, while power was restored to the southern city of Mykolaiv after strikes overnight.
“There were three strikes on a power supply facility on the left bank of Kyiv,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said on social media.
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said there were reported explosions in the capital’s northeastern Desnyanskyi district after a “critical infrastructure facility” was hit.
Tymoshenko also said two strikes had hit an energy facility in the central city of Dnipro, causing “serious damage.”
Several of the city’s districts were without electricity, according to the local governor.
There were also strikes on a power facility in Zhytomyr, a city west of Kyiv, Tymoshenko said.
Electricity and water supply was cut off in the city, Zhytomyr mayor Sergiy Sukhomlyn said on social media.
In the east, a strike hit an “industrial enterprise” in Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv, the local mayor said.
“In five minutes there were two series of explosions in the city,” mayor Igor Terekhov said.
Kidnapped
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s state nuclear energy agency on Tuesday accused Russia of detaining two senior employees at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.
In a statement on social media, Energoatom said Russian forces on Monday “kidnapped” the head of information technology Oleg Kostyukov and the plant’s assistant general director Oleg Osheka and “took them to an unknown destination.”
Energoatom called on International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi “to make every effort” to secure their release.
Russian troops captured the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant at the beginning of March, in the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine has recently accused Russia of detaining several of the plant’s employees.
Last week Energoatom said Russia detained and mistreated the plant’s deputy director general for human resources, Valeriy Martyniuk.