As of 14.00, on Friday, areas in Luhansk region which are under the control of the Ukrainian authorities have been cut off from power, after a thermal power unit stopped operating after being shelled, the region's governor Hennadiy Moskal has said.

"The whole territory of Luhansk region controlled by Ukraine has been blacked out. Water supply and boilers have stopped, trolleybuses do not operate," reads a statement posted on Moskal's website on Friday afternoon.

The militants artillery shelled the Schastia power plant from Vesela Hora at around noon, the governor said. A shell hit a transformer and one of the two operating units of the Schastia power plant came to a halt.

"The regional state administration has repeatedly asked the national military command to move military units from the power plant premises to the adjacent territory. This is not the first emergency shutdown of the thermal power plant caused by gunfire. Servicemen should be protecting the thermal power plant on access routes rather than build bunkers on its roof which the militants are trying to hit," the head of the Luhansk region state administration said.