The attacks plunged much of the country into a blackout, depriving hundreds of thousands of people of electricity into Monday night and creating a shortage so severe Ukrainian authorities asked people to conserve and announced they will stop power exports to Europe starting Tuesday.Andriy Yermak, a senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said the strikes had no “practical military sense” and that Russia’s goal was to cause a “humanitarian catastrophe.” Russian President Vladimir Putin said his forces targeted key energy infrastructure and military command facilities with “precision weapons” in retaliation for what he claimed were Kyiv’s “terrorist” actions — a reference to Ukraine’s attempts to repel Moscow’s invasion, including an attack Saturday on a key bridge between Russia and the annexed Crimean Peninsula.The Russian president has been under intense domestic pressure to take more aggressive action to stop a largely successful Ukrainian counteroffensive and to react forcefully to Saturday’s attack on the Kerch bridge, whose construction he used to cement his 2014 annexation of Crimea.Zelenskyy has repeatedly called on world leaders to declare Russia a terrorist state because of its attacks on civilians and alleged war crimes.Some of the strikes hit near the government quarter in the capital’s symbolic heart, where parliament and other major landmarks are located."