Ukrainian cities Lyiv and Kharkiv lose power after missile strikes

The Ukrainian cities of Lviv and Kharkiv lost power entirely after widespread strikes were reported across the nation.

Wednesday's barrage piled further hardship on a country already struggling from repeated strikes on its power grid, with Russia pounding key infrastructure from the air.

Andriy Sadovy, mayor of Western city Lviv, urged locals to take shelter, and said "the whole city is without power". The city's regional governor reported “two missile strikes on a power substation” in the region.

Power in Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, is also out, its mayor said. Ihor Terekhov added that all public transport there had stopped running.

Kyiv's mayor Vitali Klitschko said that “one of the capital’s infrastructure facilities has been hit” and there were “several more explosions in different districts” of the city.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the explosions were caused by air defene systems at work or Russian projectiles hitting targets. He said water supplies were knocked out in all of Kyiv.

Authorities in the capital said that, in the latest strikes, three people were killed after a two-story building was hit.

State-owned grid operator Ukrenergo said Russia’s missile attack was continuing, but there were already emergency shutdowns in all regions.

“This is a necessary step to protect power grids from additional technological accidents and support the operation of the power system,” Ukrenergo said. The repair work will begin when air raid sirens cease.

In Moldova, infrastructure minister Andrei Spinu reported power outages across the nation following similar disruption on November 15.

The latest onslaught on Ukraine came hours after authorities there said an overnight rocket attack destroyed a hospital maternity ward in southern Ukraine, killing a two-day-old baby. Following the overnight strike in Vilniansk, close to the city of Zaporizhzhia, the baby’s mother and a doctor were pulled alive from the rubble.

The region’s governor said the rockets were Russian. The strike adds to the gruesome toll suffered by hospitals and other medical facilities - and their patients and staff - in the Russian invasion that will enter its tenth month this week.

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They have been in the firing line from the outset, including a March 9 airstrike that destroyed a maternity hospital in the now-occupied port city of Mariupol.

First lady Olena Zelenska wrote on Twitter that a two-day-old boy died in the strike and expressed her condolences. “Horrible pain. We will never forget and never forgive,” she said.

Photos posted by the governor showed thick smoke rising above mounds of rubble, being combed by emergency workers against the backdrop of a dark night sky. The State Emergency Service said the two-story building was destroyed.

Medical workers’ efforts have been complicated by the succession of Russian attacks in recent weeks on Ukraine’s infrastructure.

The situation is even worse in the southern city of Kherson, from which Russia retreated nearly two weeks ago after months of occupation - cutting power and water lines.

Many doctors in the city are working in the dark, unable to use elevators to transport patients to surgery and operating with headlamps, cell phones and flashlights. In some hospitals, key equipment no longer works.

“Breathing machines don’t work, X-ray machines don’t work ... There is only one portable ultrasound machine and we carry it constantly,” said Volodymyr Malishchuk, the head of surgery at a children’s hospital in the city.