‘Huge’ Russian strike on Ukraine kills at least six, hits power facilities

‘Huge’ Russian strike on Ukraine kills at least six, hits power facilities

Russian air raids have killed at least six people across Ukraine and cut electricity supplies to hundreds of thousands, only days after United States President Donald Trump announced an “energy ceasefire” in the war that has lasted more than four years.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Wednesday that its forces launched a “massive” attack on Ukrainian communications and energy sites, according to Russian media reports.

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In a statement, the ministry said Russian forces struck two facilities providing electricity and heating to Kyiv, as well as two more plants in the surrounding area and an electrical substation.

It said additional targets included a combined heat and power plant in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and a thermal power site in southeastern Kharkiv region that Moscow claimed supported Ukrainian military operations.

Russia also said it attacked a data centre in Kyiv that it alleged was being used to collect intelligence concerning Russian forces.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko called on residents to stay in shelters.

“Energy infrastructure in Kyiv and the surrounding region is under a major ballistic missile attack. Power outages have been reported in the capital,” he said in a message posted online.

DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, said the strikes triggered emergency electricity shutdowns in several parts of Kyiv.

A Russian strike on an apartment block in Kyiv’s Desnianskyi district killed two people, while another attack in the Holosiivskyi district killed one person, Ukraine’s emergency services said.

Ukraine’s military said Russian attacks in the Dnipropetrovsk region killed two people and wounded six others. One more person was reported killed in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region.

More missile strikes were reported in the Kharkiv and Zhytomyr regions, while Sumy and Chernihiv also came under attack.

Audrey MacAlpine, reporting from Kyiv, said the assault on the capital involved a record number of hypersonic missiles.

“More than half a million people across Ukraine have been left without electricity following these strikes,” she said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine had received no advance alert from Western partners about the ballistic missile strike on Kyiv, raising concerns about the sharing of intelligence.

“A Russian ballistic missile attack on Kyiv, and once again there was no early warning from our partners,” he said. “This is deeply unfair when our infrastructure is being destroyed and Ukraine is not even given advance notice of ballistic missile launches.”

The president said Ukrainian forces detected the missiles only when they were already approaching Kyiv.

He also accused Moscow of breaching the “energy ceasefire” announced by Trump on Sunday.

“This was a deliberate Russian ballistic missile attack on energy infrastructure, precisely the infrastructure covered by the ceasefire announced by the American president,” he said.

“Its scale was intentional and demonstrative. Russia has never shown such open disregard for the United States before.”

A technology adviser to Ukraine’s president said some Starlink terminals appeared to have faced new limits overnight, with a speed restriction preventing the military version from functioning above 160 kilometres per hour and affecting combat operations.

“SpaceX introduced a speed limit for Starlink terminals in motion overnight,” Sergiy Beskrestnov said, referring to the company that operates the satellite network.

“Our defence forces were not warned about this measure, and several missions were disrupted as a result. It is difficult to see this as a coincidence given the current political context.”

Russia, meanwhile, said it had faced Ukrainian drone attacks overnight. Roman Busargin, governor of Russia’s Saratov region, said a Ukrainian drone strike killed one person in the city of Balakovo.

Busargin said key infrastructure was continuing to operate normally. Balakovo hosts a major data centre, a nuclear power plant and a hydroelectric station on the Volga River, among other facilities.

Russia’s largest lender later said its data centre in the Saratov region had been targeted by drones but that its systems remained operational.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said air defence units shot down nearly 500 drones heading towards the Russian capital overnight. Authorities said roughly 160 additional drones were destroyed over the Rostov region, while others were directed at Moscow.

Russia’s military later said it had downed 902 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 180 in areas near Moscow.

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