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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Michael Howie

Russia bombards Ukraine's energy plants after Trump-Putin summit shelved

Vladimir Putin’s forces have launched a wave of strikes on Ukraine’s energy facilities, leading to emergency power cuts across the country.

At least two people have been killed and homes set ablaze in Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday.

The attack comes as a summit between leaders of Russia and the US was shelved after Moscow rejected a ceasefire.

Debris from downed weapons was strewn across Kyiv, sparking fires in nearly half of the city's districts, said Timur Tkachenko, head of the military administration of the Ukrainian capital, on the Telegram messaging app.

A drone explosion seen in the sky over Kyiv on Wednesday, October 22 (REUTERS)

On Tuesday, the White House put a planned summit between US President Donald Trump and Putin on hold after Moscow rejected calls for an immediate ceasefire. A senior US official told Reuters there were no plans for a meeting soon.

“All night the enemy struck the country's energy infrastructure," said Svitlana Hrynchuk, Ukraine's energy minister, in a Telegram post. “The massive attack is ongoing.”

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that 10 people were rescued from a fire in a high-rise building in the city's urban Dniprovskyi district, where the body of one person was found. Tkachenko said another person was killed in the attack on the city.

People take shelter inside a metro station (REUTERS)

Fires also broke out in the Pecherskyi, Desnianskyi and the Darnytskyi districts, both officials said. The Pecherskyi district is home to Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery - a symbol of Ukrainian spiritual and cultural history.

Ukrainian officials said the attacks, which lasted most of the night and were still ongoing on Wednesday morning, were first carried out with ballistic missiles and followed up by drone strikes. There was no immediate comment from Russia.

Emergency workers evacuate a dog from the site of a Russian strike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine (via REUTERS)

Witnesses said that they heard a series of explosions in what sounded like air-defence units in operation.

In the region surrounding Kyiv, a private residential house caught fire as a result of the Russian attack, injuring an elderly woman, the region's governor, Mykola Kalashnyk, said on Telegram.

In the frontline Zaporizhzhia region in Ukraine's southeast, which has been subject to continued strikes and shelling by Russian forces, 13 people were wounded in overnight attacks, said Ivan Fedorov, the region's governor, on Wednesday.

Smoke marks on the facade of a residential building damaged during a Russian drone and missile strike (REUTERS)

In the central Poltava region, oil and gas facilities were damaged in the Myrhorod district as a result of the Russian attack, the regional governor said.

Russia has consistently hit Ukrainian energy facilities since launching a full-scale invasion of the country in 2022, maintaining that they are a legitimate military target in the war.

A Tuesday attack on Ukraine killed four people and left hundreds of thousands without power and many without water in what Kyiv said was Moscow's latest salvo in a campaign to break its neighbour's energy system ahead of winter.

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