A massive barrage of Russian strikes on Monday morning hit critical infrastructure in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and other cities, knocking out water and power in apparent retaliation for what Moscow alleged was a Ukrainian attack on its Black Sea Fleet over the weekend. The mayor of Ukraine's capital said 80% of consumers in Kyiv were left without water "due to the damage to a power facility" near the city from Russian military strikes on Monday, per the AP. Local authorities were working on restoring the supplies as soon as possible, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, telling Kyiv residents in the meantime to "stock up on water from the nearest pump rooms and points of sale." In a separate Telegram post, Klitschko added that water supplies in some areas of Kyiv will be restored in "three to four hours," and that power had already been restored in one of the city's districts.
Loud explosions were heard across the Ukrainian capital in the early morning as residents prepared to go to work. Many received text messages from emergency services about the threat of a missile attack, and air raid sirens wailed for three straight hours. The attacks occurred just before Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala and many top members of his government, including the foreign, defense, and interior ministers, arrived in Kyiv in the latest show of support from European leaders for Ukraine. In the outlying Kyiv region, authorities warned people to be prepared for a long power outage because of the emergency cuts. Kyiv regional Gov. Oleksii Kuleba also said that one person was wounded and a number of houses were damaged as a result of the morning attack.
Meanwhile, in the eastern city of Kharkiv, two strikes hit critical infrastructure facilities, according to authorities, and the subway ceased operating. Officials also warned about possible power outages in the city of Zaporizhzhia resulting from the strikes there. The Lviv region in western Ukraine was also targeted, but the missiles were shot down, Lviv Gov. Maksym Kozytskyy said. Critical infrastructure objects were also hit in the Cherkasy region southeast of Kyiv, and explosions were reported in other regions of Ukraine. The attack comes two days after Russia accused Ukraine of a drone attack against Russia's Black Sea Fleet off the coast of the annexed Crimean Peninsula.
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Ukraine has denied the attack, saying that Russia mishandled its own weapons, but Moscow still announced halting its participation in a UN-brokered deal to allow safe passage of ships carrying grain from Ukraine. It's the second time this month that Russia unleashed a massive barrage of strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure. On Oct. 10, a similar attack rocked the war-torn country following an explosion on the Kerch Strait Bridge linking annexed Crimea to mainland Russia—an incident Moscow blamed on Kyiv. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said there was no justification for Russia launching missiles meant to inflict so much suffering on civilians. "Don't justify these attacks by calling them a 'response,'" he tweeted. "Russia does this because it still has the missiles and the will to kill Ukrainians." The Russian military hasn't yet commented on the latest attack.
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