MOSCOW: Russian occupational authorities in southern Ukraine said Saturday that Ukrainian forces were subjecting the city of Novaya Kakhovka to intense artillery fire that had cut off electricity, reports AFP.

The shelling came the same day that authorities in Russian-annexed Crimea reported a drone attack on a fuel depot and as Kyiv prepares for a widely expected counter-offensive against Moscow's forces.

Novaya Kakhovka and settlements around the district are under very intense artillery fire from the armed forces of Ukraine, the city's Russian-installed authorities said on Telegram.

It added that the artillery fire left the city without power.

The Moscow-installed authorities urged people in the city to keep calm and said that work to restore power will start after the shelling ends. Novaya Kakhovka fell to Russian forces on the first day of their offensive in Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

It is home to the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam, a strategic target capture in the first hours of Moscow's offensive.

Meanwhile, five Russian villages on the border with Ukraine were without power as a result of Ukrainian shelling.

"The village of Novaya Tavolzhanka came under Ukrainian shelling today," Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said Saturday on Telegram.

"The power lines are damaged", he said, adding that residents in the village and four others nearby were "without electricity."

Gladkov said that "according to preliminary information, there are no victims." He said a new uninhabited house had been struck and some other houses damaged.