KYIV (AFP) — Russia battered Ukrainian energy facilities with hundreds of drones and missiles, Kyiv said Thursday, killing at least four people, wounding children, and piling more pressure on Ukraine’s fragile energy grid.

The attack came as Russian forces said they had captured two more villages in eastern and southern Ukraine, where Kyiv’s outnumbered forces have steadily lost ground to Moscow.

President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a social media statement, said Russian forces had targeted civilians and energy facilities in nine regions and the capital Kyiv with the strikes.

“We count on America, Europe, and the G7 countries not to ignore Moscow’s intent to destroy everything,” Zelensky said, calling for more sanctions to pressure Russia to end its invasion.

DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, said power plants were damaged in various regions, without specifying which ones.

Russia’s defense ministry meanwhile said it had downed 170 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 48 in Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine, and nine in Moscow region which surrounds the capital.

And it said its forces had wrested control of Sadove in the northeastern Kharkiv region and Krasnogirske in Zaporizhzhia region, which the Kremlin claims is part of Russia.

Moscow has kept up a near-constant barrage of drone and missile attacks as it grinds on with the invasion it launched in February 2022.