War in Ukraine: 1.5 million people without electricity in the port city of Odessa

As the war in Ukraine enters its eleventh month, Russia continues to target civilian infrastructure.

In Kherson, two people were killed and five others injured after troops from Moscow shelled the southern region of Ukraine.

The city governor said the strikes destroyed a maternity ward, a cafe, as well as an apartment building.

About 20 airstrikes and more than 60 rocket attacks hit targets across Ukraine between Friday and Saturday, the Ukrainian army general staff reported.

For several weeks, Russia has been concentrating all its forces to try to seize the city of Bakhmut.

There, fierce fighting turned into bloody trench warfare, reminiscent of the First World War.

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Bakhmut has been reduced to a “burnt ruin”.

Zelenskyy also said more than 1.5 million people were without power in the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa after a nighttime attack by drones.

The Odessa regional administration’s energy department said on Saturday that it could take up to three months to fully restore electricity, and it urged families whose homes are without electricity to leave the region if possible.

Confusion surrounds the situation in the Russian-occupied town of Melitopol after a Ukrainian attack on a barracks.

Ukrainian officials claimed dozens of Russian casualties while Moscow says only a handful were injured.

Video footage posted on social media showed what was believed to be a Russian barracks in the southern city engulfed in a massive fire.

Explosions were also reported overnight in Russian-occupied Crimea, including Sevastopol and Simferopol.