Russian strikes across Ukraine on Wednesday killed three people and left more than 100,000 households without power, Kyiv said.
"Russians attacked energy and gas transport infrastructure facilities in six regions," the Ukrainian energy ministry said in a statement.
It called the attack a "deliberate policy of destroying Ukraine's civilian infrastructure on the eve of the heating season", hampering the heating supply system ahead of colder autumn days.
A farm in the southern Kherson region was damaged as a result of heavy shelling, killing two employees there, and an 81-year-old woman died in an overnight attack on the regional capital, local officials said.
And more than 100,000 houses were cut-off from electricity in the Poltava, Sumy and Chernigiv regions, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
He called for the United States to take a firm stance against Moscow's ongoing attacks, as peace efforts stutter.
"The Russians continue the war and ignore the world's calls to stop the killings and destruction. New steps are needed to increase pressure on Russia to stop the attacks and to ensure real security guarantees," he said on social media.
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Ukraine's main gas production facilities are located in Poltava and Kharkiv regions. Kharkiv region was also hit overnight, as were the regions of Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk, the energy ministry said.
Ukraine has faced a serious gas shortage since Russian missile strikes earlier this year prompted a 40 percent drop in production.
Ukraine's energy ministry said last week that energy facilities had been attacked 2,900 times since March 2025.
Kyiv has also stepped up its attacks on Russian energy infrastructure in recent weeks. Gas stations have run dry in some regions of Russia after Ukrainian drones struck refineries and other oil infrastructure with larger, more concentrated attacks timed to coincide with peak demand.
Between August 2 and August 24, Ukraine attacked oil infrastructure at least 12 times, according to media reports. Of those attacks, at least 10 were targeting sites in the Ryazan-Volgograd arc in southwestern Russia.
Russia, which now occupies around one-fifth of Ukraine, has advanced in recent months in a grinding campaign against Kyiv's smaller, outgunned army.
Moscow claimed Wednesday to have captured another settlement in the Donetsk region, which Moscow is fighting to seize in its entirety.
As part of any deal to end the war, Kyiv is trying to map out Western-backed security guarantees that would prevent Moscow from attacking again in the future.
Russia has denied targeting civilians since it launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, but says energy systems and other infrastructure are legitimate targets because they help Ukraine's war effort.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
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