Ukrainian authorities have said that cities and towns in the east have come under heavy bombardment over the last 24 hours.

In a statement on social media, Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said that Russia had unleashed a barrage of millions of shells on cities across the eastern regions of the country.

“Over the last 24 hours, the enemy shelled 118 settlements in 10 regions,” Klymenko said on Wednesday.

“This is the highest number of cities and villages that have come under attack since the start of the year,” he said.

Russia’s wave of strikes turned some towns and villages to rubble. Local authorities said that overnight shelling in the city of Kharkiv, near the border with Russia, killed one person, with another also killed in southeastern Kherson.

A Russian drone strike on the southern city of Nikopol also killed a 59-year-old woman and injured four people.

Kyiv reported that a Russian strike on an oil refinery in Kremenchuk had caused a fire that took hours to extinguish, but resulted in no casualties.

Ukraine and its partners in the West, such as the United States, worry that Russia could squeeze Ukraine by targeting energy infrastructure as winter approaches.

In an interview published by the British outlet The Economist on Wednesday, Ukrainian top general Valery Zaluzhny said that the conflict is moving towards a state of attrition, and that Ukraine will need new technology and larger army reserves to meet its goals.

While Western supporters of Ukraine had hoped that a much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive would result in large territorial gains, Zaluzhny said in the interview that there would be no “deep and beautiful breakthrough”.