Russian strikes kill 3 in Ukraine as Kyiv asks West to allow striking targets deep inside Russia

At least three people have been killed in widespread Russian drone and missile strikes on energy infrastructure across Ukraine on Monday, regional authorities reported.

Fifteen regions in total — more than half the country — were affected by Russian airstrikes, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said in a Telegram post on Monday, while civilian fatalities were reported by regional authorities in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, the central Dnipropetrovsk region and the northwestern Volyn region.

The Russian military also attacked energy infrastructure in Western Ukraine’s Lviv region, which caused blackouts, according to Lviv Governor Maksym Kozitsky. Electricity blackouts were reported across the country, with Ukraine’s national energy company Ukrenergo implementing emergency power outages throughout Ukraine.

On Monday Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, called on Kyiv’s allies to grant permission for the Armed Forces of Ukraine “to strike deep into the territory of the Russian Federation”, adding that such a decision would “accelerate the end of the Russian terror.”

Russia’s latest attack on Ukraine followed Ukrainian drone strikes on the cities of Saratov and Engels in southern Russia’s Saratov region in the early hours of Monday morning, which damaged several high-rise apartment buildings and injured four people.

Russian news outlet RBC reported a total of 24 Ukrainian drone strikes in regions across Russia on Monday, citing information from the Russian Defence Ministry.