Ukrainian forces repelled multiple Russian attacks in the east, the military said on November 18, as Moscow continued to target Ukraine's energy infrastructure, causing shortages and interruptions in the supply of electricity and gas at the onset of the winter season.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said the military fought off Russian offensives in eight locations in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, including Novoselivske and Stelmakhivka in Luhansk and Belohoryivka and Pervomaiske, Vodyane, and Novomykhailivka in Donetsk.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly address on November 17 that 10 million Ukrainians were left without power after a fresh wave of missile strikes by Russia.

At least seven people were killed in the strikes, with the number expected to rise.

"We are doing everything to normalize the supply," Zelenskiy said.

Ukraine's air defenses managed to shoot down six cruise missiles and five drones, he added.

Ukrainian specialists working around the clock have restored power to about 70 percent of consumers in a number of regions in central Ukraine, authorities said, but cautioned that work is being slowed down by land mines planted by retreating Russian forces in the Kherson region.

The national electricity company noted that a wave of Russian rocket attacks on November 15 damaged 15 energy facilities and that as a result thousands of kilometers of main high-voltage lines are not working.

In eastern Ukraine, Russia “launched a massive attack on gas production infrastructure," said the chief of the state energy company Naftohaz, Oleksiy Chernishov. He did not elaborate.

Meanwhile, investigators in Ukraine's recently liberated southern Kherson region uncovered 63 bodies with signs of torture after Russian forces left, Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky said on national television.

A top Ukrainian human rights investigator on November 17 released a video of what he said was a torture chamber used by Russian forces in Kherson, including a small room in which he said up to 25 people were kept at a time.

Dmytro Lubinets, the parliament's human rights commissioner, shared the video on social media.

Late on November 17, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart, Commander in Chief General Valery Zaluzhny, according to a readout of the call provided by his spokesperson. (SJ/RFE)