South Ukraine has come under attack from both sides of the war, with Kyiv retaliating near Melitopol after Russia fired drones at Odesa.
The Ukrainian army claimed to have shot down 10 drones on Saturday, but an additional five struck electrical infrastructure, knocking out electricity for about 1.5 million people.
Later, the exiled mayor of Melitopol, a Ukrainian, claimed that a strike had been launched against the Russian-controlled city.
According to Ukrainian officials, Russia used Iranian-made drones in its drone strike on the Ukrainian port city of Odesa.
“The situation in the Odesa region is very difficult,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly video address. “Unfortunately the hits were critical, so it takes more than just time to restore electricity. It doesn’t take hours, but a few days.”
Since October, Moscow has been targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with large waves of missile and drone strikes.
In Melitopol, pro-Moscow authorities said a missile attack had killed two people and injured 10, while Ivan Fedorov, the exiled mayor, said scores of “invaders” had been killed.
“Air defence systems destroyed two missiles, and four reached their targets,” Yevgeny Balitsky, the Moscow-appointed governor of the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region, said on the Telegram messaging app.
He added that a “recreation centre” where people were dining had been destroyed in the Ukrainian attack with Himars missiles.