KYIV, Ukraine — From towns near the front lines to high-rises in the capital, Ukrainians faced shortages of electricity, water and heat on Tuesday as Russia’s bombardment of civilian targets and infrastructure threatened millions of people with the prospect of a desolate winter without basic services.
The Russian barrage heralds a new phase of the war — even as the Kremlin’s forces struggle on the battlefield, they have stepped up efforts to inflict suffering from afar. Civilians and infrastructure have been targets since the start of the invasion, but Russia has sharply increased long-range strikes deep into Ukraine, focusing on vital utility networks whose collapse would yield a new kind of humanitarian disaster there.
Since Oct. 10, the Russian attacks have destroyed 30 percent of Ukraine’s power stations and caused “massive blackouts across the country,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday. Residents are being urged — in some cases, forced by circumstances — to conserve water and energy. Business are turning off illuminated signs, and billboards are no longer lit up at night.
A government minister, Oleksii Chernyshov, said 408 sites in Ukraine had been struck in that time, including 45 energy facilities. Many of the attacks have also hit thermal energy plants that generate steam for heating homes and businesses.
“The destruction of houses and lack of access to fuel or electricity due to damaged infrastructure could become a matter of life or death if people are unable to heat their homes,” Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, the World Health Organization’s director for Europe, said on Friday.
The United Nations resident coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown, told CNN on Tuesday that the devastation threatened “a high risk of mortality during the winter months.”
In parts of Kyiv, the capital, the authorities warned people not to drink tap water, which was running cloudy after it was compromised by airstrikes on Monday. In another neighborhood, a field kitchen was set up to provide food for those without water or electricity. People lined up at stores to fill bottles with fresh water, and electricity suppliers warned that the city would continue to experience blackouts while repairs were underway.
In one neighborhood on the outskirts of the northern city of Chernihiv, residents said there had been several days in a row when electricity was turned off from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. to conserve energy. At a restaurant in the city, a waiter apologized to patrons about the dim lighting that left menus barely visible, noting that the establishment was complying with a request to turn off unnecessary lights.
In the central city of Zhytomyr, electric trolleys and trams were shut down because there was no electricity to run them, and the mayor said the hospitals were running on emergency backup generators. In some high-rises, the water pressure was so low that only the first few floors had running water.
Russia’s stepped-up campaign of striking cities far from the front lines comes even as its forces have struggled in eastern and southern Ukraine. Since early last month, the Ukrainians have been on the offensive, retaking territory seized by Russia this year, though the movement appears to have slowed in recent days.
The Russian position appears to be particularly endangered in the strategic southern region and the city of Kherson, which was captured by Moscow’s forces early in the war. Ukrainian forces have severed the bridges that were used to resupply and reinforce Russian troops on the west bank of the Dnipro River.
The State of the War
The Russian general commanding the war effort, Sergei Surovikin, on Tuesday offered a tacit admission that his forces there might have to retreat, while the Kremlin-appointed regional administrator said civilians would be evacuated from some areas.
“Our future plans and actions regarding the city of Kherson will depend on the unfolding military-tactical situation,” General Surovikin said in a televised statement. “I repeat — today it is already quite difficult.”
On Tuesday, Estonia’s defense minister, Hanno Pevkur, warned that General Surovikin was likely to extend his reputation for ruthlessness by launching more missile and drone barrages against civilian and critical infrastructure.
“For him the civilian lives are basically nothing,” Mr. Pevkur told reporters after meeting with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III in Washington. “He’s ready to continue these kinds of actions against civilians. And the aim is clear. The aim is to put the Ukrainian people under constant terror and constant threat.”
Oct. 18, 2022, 6:49 p.m. ET
The Kremlin has called the bombing of Ukrainian cities retaliation for the Oct. 8 attack that badly damaged the only bridge linking Crimea to Russian lands to the east — a vital supply line for Russian forces in southern Ukraine that was a pet project of President Vladimir V. Putin.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that it launched long-range strikes on Tuesday targeting “the military control and energy systems of Ukraine,” along with depots storing foreign-supplied military weapons and equipment. Its claims could not be independently verified.
And for the first time, Russia is making heavy use of drones, many of them bought from Iran, that dive into their targets and detonate their warheads on impact. Ukrainian forces claim to have shot down most of the drones, but enough have penetrated air defenses to do significant damage, prompting Ukrainians to reassess their tactics. The drones, which are cheap, are often launched by the dozens.
On the ground, antiaircraft fire — ranging from sophisticated missile batteries to soldiers’ shooting their rifles — has suddenly taken on new import as Ukraine scrambles to create an intensive anti-drone campaign.
In Washington on Tuesday, Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon’s press secretary, condemned the Russian attacks against Ukraine’s electrical grid, saying that the Kremlin was “obviously trying to inflict pain on the civilian society as well as try to have an impact on Ukrainian forces.”
“But what we’ve seen so far is Ukraine be very resilient and their ability to get things like their power grids back up online quickly,” General Ryder told reporters. “In the meantime, our focus will continue to be on working with them to identify what their needs are, to include things like air defense.”
Ballistic missiles traveling at thousands of miles per hour are extremely hard to intercept. Cruise missiles, flying at several hundred miles per hour, are easier to hit but, flying very low, can be harder to detect. Drones generally do not travel over 100 miles per hour, making them fairly easy to shoot down. The challenge lies in their numbers.
A Ukrainian pilot was hailed as a hero after shooting down five Iranian-made drones and two cruise missiles in one sortie last week, only to collide with the debris from a drone in midair, forcing him to eject from his disabled MiG-29 fighter jet. His plane crashed, damaging several houses and a power line, but did not cause any injuries.
“Within a short period of time, we are adapting to this kind of weapon and are starting to destroy it successfully,” the pilot, who identified himself only by a nickname, Karaya, told local news media afterward.
NATO countries have delivered to Ukraine air-defense systems that are effective against drones and will send more in the coming days, the alliance’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Tuesday at a conference in Berlin.
On Tuesday in Kyiv, one of several cities shaken by explosions, blasts hit a district on the eastern bank of the Dnipro, according to the mayor, Vitali Klitschko. The attack killed at least five people and knocked out electricity and water in parts of the city, officials said.
Mr. Klitschko said that an “object of critical infrastructure” had been struck, but did not elaborate. Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a senior official in Mr. Zelensky’s office, said that at least three strikes had hit an energy site, resulting in “serious damage.”
In Mykolaiv, a southern city, a Russian missile destroyed a residential building and a flower market, killing one man, according to Vitaly Kim, the regional administrator. He said the attack had been made with an S-300, an antiaircraft missile.
Russia’s increased use of drones and repurposed munitions like antiaircraft missiles to hit ground targets indicates that its forces are running low on the precision-guided cruise and ballistic missiles that have been their preferred weapons for long-range strikes, according to Western analysts.
The new focus on bombing cities, Ukraine’s officials and allies say, suggests that the Kremlin, unable to beat Ukraine’s military, has shifted to trying to destroy Ukraine’s society and its will to resist.
For many Ukrainians, the response so far has been as much defiance as fear, with people emerging from basements and subway stations once the air raid sirens stop, and going about their lives.
Reporting was contributed by Richard Pérez-Peña from New York, Eric Schmitt from Washington, Ivan Nechepurenko from Tbilisi, Georgia, and Michael Schwirtz and Oleksandra Mykolyshyn from Kyiv, Ukraine.
