Strikes cut off Kherson's power, water

Kherson was cut off from water and electricity supplies on Sunday after airstrikes on the city, and a key dam in the region was also damaged, local officials said. It is the first time that Kherson has gone without power since the conflict began.

"In Kherson and a number of other areas in the region, there is temporarily no electricity or water supply," the city's administration said on the Telegram messaging app.

It said the loss of power and water was the "result of an attack organized by the Ukrainian side on the Beryslav-Kakhovka highway that saw three concrete poles of high-voltage power lines damaged".

Energy specialists were working to quickly resolve the issue, the Russian-backed authorities said, as they called on residents to "remain calm".

But Yaroslav Yanushevych, a Ukrainian official, blamed Russia for the power outages.

He said that in the city of Beryslav around 1.5 kilometers of electric power lines had been destroyed, leaving the area without power entirely because the "damage is quite extensive".

News of the outage followed reports that the Kakhovka dam in the Kherson region was damaged by a Ukrainian strike.

Russian news agencies quoted local emergency services as saying that six HIMARS rockets struck on Sunday morning, and air defense units shot down five missiles. But one hit a lock of the dam.

The Kakhovka hydroelectric dam was captured by Moscow's forces at the start of the conflict. It supplies Crimea with water. Ukraine in recent weeks warned that Russia's forces intended to blow up the strategic facility to cause flooding.

In an address on Sunday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine is gearing up for renewed attacks on its energy infrastructure as 4.5 million residents of Kyiv and nearby towns were left without electricity.

He said the country was aware that Russia is concentrating its forces for a possible repetition of recent massive attacks on Ukraine's infrastructure, primarily energy.

In another development, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has held undisclosed talks with top Russian officials in hopes of reducing the risk that the conflict in Ukraine spills over or escalates into a nuclear conflict, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

The newspaper cited US and allied officials as saying that Sullivan, President Joe Biden's top aide on national security, held confidential conversations in recent months with Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov and Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, Sullivan's counterpart, that were not disclosed publicly.

Neither the White House nor the Kremlin confirmed the newspaper's report and The Wall Street Journal said the officials did not provide the dates or the number of calls.

Agencies contributed to this story.

REN QI in Moscow

renqi@chinadaily.com.cn