"The center of Ukraine's second city Kharkiv was plunged into darkness on Sunday evening by an electricity blackout," Reuters has confirmed of the large-scale outage. It's further being reported that some city districts are also without water, creating a severe crisis for residents.

"The cause and extent of the blackout in the northeastern city were not immediately clear. There were also unconfirmed social media reports of blackouts in other places and regions," the report said initially.

However, Ukrainian officials are pointing to stepped up and deliberate Russian attacks on civilian electrical facilities crucial to the city's operations. They are viewing it as punishment for the at this point largely successful Ukrainian military counteroffensive which has regained at least 40 towns and villages to the north and east of Kharkiv.

President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a brief statement to social media along with footage of destroyed infrastructure, denouncing "Deliberate and cynical missile strikes on civilian, critical infrastructure." He stressed they were not "military facilities" that were attacked. "Kharkiv and Donetsk regions were cut off. In Zaporizhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Sumy there are partial problems with power supply."