A “massive” Russian missile and drone attack has targeted energy infrastructure across Ukraine, the country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

At least 10 people were killed in the strikes that hit the capital, Kiev, as well as several targets in several regions, including Donetsk, Lviv and Odesa.

Ukraine’s largest private power company, DTEK, said its thermal power plants had suffered “significant damage”, leading to power outages.

The country’s state energy operator, Ukrenergo, says it will apply “restrictive measures” across Ukraine on Monday.

Saturday night’s coordinated attack was the largest of its kind since early September, according to authorities and local media.

In total, about 120 missiles and 90 drones were launched, Zelensky said on Telegram.

“Peaceful towns, sleeping civilians” and “critical infrastructure” were targeted, Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said.

The Russian Defense Ministry reported that it had hit all its targets, saying its attack was on “critical energy infrastructure that supports the Ukrainian military-industrial complex.”

“Russian terrorists once again want to scare us with cold and lack of light,” said President Zelensky.

Of course, anything that tries to deny power to weapons factories inevitably harms civilians as well—indirectly, through the loss of electricity and, frequently, water, and directly, as missiles or missile fragments rain down from the sky.

The governor of the Odesa region, Oleh Kiper, said there were also interruptions in the supply of heat and water, although the latter was gradually being restored. Hospitals and other critical infrastructure operated using generators.

Further east, the city of Mykolaiv was also hit. The region’s leader, Vitaliy Kim, told the BBC that people were resilient there despite being regularly attacked.

“People are in good shape and they want to defend themselves. We don’t want to lose our homes,” he said.

In Kiev, fragments from intercepted missiles and drones fell in several places, but no injuries were reported.

The attack was the eighth large-scale attack on Ukraine’s energy facilities this year, DTEK said in a statement, adding that its plants had been attacked more than 190 times since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine , in February 2022.

Ukrainian officials fear the latest strike could signal another concerted attempt by Russia to deplete the power grid as winter approaches.

Having already endured two and a half bitter winters since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukrainians are preparing for another.

“Here we go again,” were the words of an official from one of Ukraine’s private energy companies, summing up the mood across the country on Sunday.

Through ingenuity and sheer determination, Ukraine has managed to survive every winter onslaught so far. There is every chance it will do so again, although its generating capacity is now less than half of what it was in February 2022.

Poland, Ukraine’s western neighbor, has pushed fighter jets to patrol its own airspace as a precaution.

“Due to a massive attack by Russia, which is carrying out strikes using cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and drones against sites located, among others, in western Ukraine, the operations of Polish and allied aircraft have begun,” the Polish Operational Command said.

Hungary, which neighbors both Ukraine and Poland, was also on alert after drone strikes hit the westernmost region of Subcarpathia – about 20km (12 miles) from the Hungarian border.

The country’s defense minister said “the situation is being continuously monitored”.

These latest attacks come as both Ukraine and Russia continue to try to anticipate how US President-elect Donald Trump will act once his administration takes office in January.

Trump has consistently said his priority is to end the war and what he describes as a drain on US resources in the form of military aid to Kiev. He didn’t say how.

The US was the largest supplier of weapons to Ukraine. Between the start of the war and the end of June 2024, it delivered or committed to deliver $55.5 billion (£41.5 billion) worth of weapons and equipment, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research organization .

There are fears in Kiev that it could be under pressure to negotiate an end to the war that could favor Russian advances – Moscow continues to control much of Ukrainian territory.

Zelensky said he is sure the war with Russia will “end sooner” than they otherwise would have under the new Trump presidency.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov recently told Russian state media about “positive” signals from the incoming US administration. But Russia has denied that a phone call took place in which Donald Trump allegedly warned the Russian president against escalating the war.

Yet for all the talk of possible change when Donald Trump enters the White House, Sunday’s attacks seem to indicate that, at least for now, the grim realities of war are not changing.

Meanwhile, the leader of Germany – another Ukrainian ally – defended a phone call he had with Putin on Friday, which Kiev criticized as an attempt at appeasement.

“It was important to tell him (Putin) that he should not count on the support of Germany, Europe and many others in the world to bring down Ukraine, but that now it is also up to him to ensure that the war ends. ”, said Olaf Scholz on Sunday.

He added that the Russian president had given no indication of a change in his thinking about the war.