KIEV — Airstrikes have hit critical infrastructure in central and western Ukraine, as Russia continues to target the country’s energy grid.

Sites to the south and west of Kiev have been struck and power cuts have been reported across the country.

Ukrainian officials say many Russian cruise missiles have been intercepted by air defense systems.

Almost a third of the country’s power stations have been destroyed in a wave of airstrikes since Monday last week.

On Saturday Ukrainian officials said “critical infrastructure” had been hit in the Cherkasy region, southeast of the capital Kiev. A huge fire has been reported near the town of Smila.

There have been blackouts in Khmelnytskyi, further west. Airstrikes and power disruptions are also being reported from Odesa in the south to Rivne and Lutsk in the northwest.

The national electricity operator, Ukrenergo, said it would limit supply in several regions, including Kiev. Saturday’s strikes may have caused more damage than intense bombardment earlier this month, it added.

The government introduced restrictions on the use of power for the first time on Thursday.

Ukraine’s air force command said its defense systems had destroyed 18 Russian cruise missiles launched on Saturday morning.

The deputy mayor of the western city of Lviv, Serhiy Kiral, told the BBC on Saturday that Russia’s strategy was to damage critical infrastructure before the winter, and bring the war to areas beyond the front line.

“The more successes the Ukrainian armed forces are having at the front the worse it’s going to be for people on the home front because Russia is going to do all it can to target civilians and to target critical infrastructure,” he said in an interview with the Newshour radio program.

On Friday Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of planting mines at a hydroelectric dam in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine, which is under the control of Moscow’s forces.

He said that if the Kakhovka hydropower plant was destroyed, hundreds of thousands of people would be in danger of flooding. Russia has denied planning to blow up the dam and said Ukraine was firing missiles at it.

Neither side produced evidence to support their claims.

The dam may provide Russia with one of the few remaining routes across the River Dnieper (called Dnipro by Ukrainians) in the partially occupied Kherson region.

Russia is moving civilians from the areas under its control, in expectation of a Ukrainian offensive to take the city. — BBC