Missiles rain on Ukraine, battering infrastructure
STORY: Air raid sirens blared across Ukraine and explosions rang out in Kyiv on Monday (October 31).
Plumes of black smoke spiraled into the sky above the capital, as Russian missiles rained down in renewed air attacks.
Ukrainian officials said energy infrastructure was hit - including hydro-electric dams, knocking out power, heat and water supplies.
Many residents in the capital rushed to the shops to buy water, after the strikes left some 80% of Kyiv residents without running taps, according to Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko.
"I have a feeling that the Russian aggressors want to freeze people in this winter. They propose himself (this war) as 'war against military,' but right now this war has directly impacted civilian population. They want to make the people without heating, without water, without electricity in the winter. They want to (see) the whole population freezing during the winter in our hometown. This is genocide, there's no other words."
In Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv, underground trains and trolleybuses ground to a halt due to power cuts.
The local governor claimed five Russian missiles had hit the region, including critical infrastructure.
Ihor Polovikov is a trolleybus driver.
"I react as I should! I'm fed up with them (Russians). But nobody will give up just like that. We got used to it, it's the ninth month (of war). Everyone has understood that this is necessary."
Russia's missile strikes during the Monday morning rush hour repeat a tactic it has pursued this month of targeting Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, especially power stations.
For the past three weeks, it has been conducting a campaign of attacks using expensive long range missiles and cheap Iranian-made "suicide drones" that fly at a target and detonate.
Iran has repeatedly denied supplying weapons to Russia for the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine's military said it had shot down 44 of 50 Russian missiles in Monday's shelling.
Authorities claim 18 targets were hit in strikes in 10 Ukrainian regions - and that most of those were energy infrastructure.
