Russian forces launched guided bomb attacks on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, on Monday, cutting power to around 30,000 customers across three districts, local officials said.

Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov wrote on Telegram that the strikes targeted the Nemyshlianskyi and Slobidskyi districts in the southeast and the Shevchenkivskyi district in the north of the city.

Mayor Ihor Terekhov told local television that three bombs had damaged a hospital and struck power transmission lines, leaving tens of thousands without electricity. Four people were injured, mainly by flying glass, and some patients were transferred to other wards.

“Unfortunately, the hospital sustained serious damage while patients were inside. Four people were injured to varying degrees and about 200 windows were shattered,” Terekhov said.

“Attacks are generally aimed at energy infrastructure — generation, transmission, the power network. The goal is to bring down the power system,” he added.

In recent weeks, Russian forces have increasingly focused on Ukraine’s electricity and gas facilities as winter approaches, in the conflict now stretching beyond three and a half years.

A large-scale assault on Kyiv and other cities last week left more than a million households and businesses temporarily without electricity, also disrupting water supplies.

Meanwhile, in Kostiantynivka in the eastern Donetsk region — one of the main targets of Russia’s slow advance — a Russian drone strike on Monday killed two people travelling in a car, according to the head of the city’s military administration.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said its troops had captured two new villages in their push through eastern Ukraine — one in Donetsk region and another near Kupiansk in the northeast, a city largely destroyed after months of fighting.

However, Ukraine’s National Guard reported that its first corps had repelled another Russian attempt to advance near the town of Dobropillia in Donetsk region.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials have also spoken of military gains around Dobropillia, near the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk.

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