Ukrainian authorities reported on Saturday that Russian strikes overnight left more than 100,000 households without electricity in northern Ukraine and cut water supplies to a regional capital, while civilian casualties rose sharply in the besieged east of the country.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Energy stated that the northern Sumy region bordering Russia was plunged into darkness after Russian strikes late Friday destroyed energy infrastructure. Hours later, Ukraine's public broadcasting organization reported that Russian drones hit the regional capital, also called Sumy, cutting off water by damaging electrical lines feeding the pumping system.

The Russian news agency quoted a local Kremlin-backed leader saying that Moscow's forces struck an artillery shell production factory in the city, which had a pre-war population of more than 256,000. The report did not specify the type of weapon used, and the claim could not be independently verified. Explosions rocked the city during an air raid alert early Saturday, according to Ukrainian media reports.

In the eastern Donetsk region, local governor Vadim Filashkin reported on Saturday that Russian shelling on Friday and overnight killed 11 civilians and wounded 43 others. Five people died in the town of Seledov, southeast of Pokrovsk, the eastern city that has become a hot spot on the frontline. The General Staff of Ukraine reported on Saturday morning that Ukrainian and Russian forces clashed 45 times near Pokrovsk over the previous day.

According to Filashkin, three more people died in Chasiv Yar, a strategically located town in Donetsk that has been reduced to rubble amid a prolonged Russian offensive.

A spokesperson for the Ukrainian army told the Associated Press on Thursday that Ukrainian forces had withdrawn from a neighborhood on the outskirts of Chasiv Yar. The elevated position of the town gives it strategic importance, and military analysts say its fall could endanger nearby cities. It could also jeopardize vital Ukrainian supply routes and bring Russia closer to its stated goal of seizing the entire Donetsk region.

According to the Ukrainian General Staff, Russian forces launched six missile strikes and 55 air raids across Ukraine on Friday and overnight, employing more than 70 "glide bombs" – weapons that have been modernized from the Soviet era and have caused devastation in the country in recent weeks.

In Kyiv, Ukrainian service members gathered on Saturday to pay their last respects to a British combat medic who had established a charity to deliver essential supplies to frontline fighters.

Peter Fuchs died "on the battlefield" last Thursday when his unit engaged with Russian forces, according to his colleague in the Konstantin Project, the volunteer group that has been delivering drones, vehicles, uniforms, and food to Ukrainian soldiers in the east since 2022. According to its website, it also helped evacuate 219 Ukrainian soldiers from combat zones.

During the funeral ceremony, Ukrainian soldiers carried Fuchs' coffin through the historic Independence Square in Kyiv, the site of mass protests in 2014 that forced a pro-Russian president to resign. Fuchs' comrades held back tears as they lined up to bid him farewell, while others read prayers and raised Ukrainian flags and military insignia.

A statement released on Monday by Halina Juk, co-founder of the Konstantin Project in Ukraine, described Fuchs as a "hero" and praised his "unyielding commitment to Ukraine and its people."

Fuchs, a 49-year-old from West London, helped build a field hospital in Kyiv before starting the Konstantin Project, according to the group's website, and was later conscripted into the Ukrainian army. At least five other British nationals have been killed while volunteering in Ukraine since Russia's large-scale invasion in February 2022.

In Russia, two civilians were injured after Ukrainian forces overnight bombarded a border town in the southern Belgorod region, according to its governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.

The Russian Ministry of Defense stated that its forces shot down a total of eight drones overnight over the southern regions of Kursk and Belgorod.

In the Krasnodar region, adjacent to the Crimean Peninsula annexed by Russia, local authorities reported damage overnight from falling debris of drones. Reports indicated that the debris caused a fire at an oil depot, ignited fuel tanks at a separate site, and damaged a mobile phone tower. There were no immediate reports of injuries.