Ukraine-Russia war latest: Major Russian attack destroys power plant near Kyiv as Zelensky says allies ‘turning blind eye’

Russian missiles and drones destroyed a large electricity plant near Kyiv and hit power facilities in several regions of Ukraine on Thursday, officials said, ramping up pressure on the embattled energy system as Kyiv runs low on air defences.

The major attack more than two years since Russia’s full-scale invasion completely destroyed the Trypilska coal-powered thermal power plant near the capital, a senior official at the company that runs the facility told Reuters.

Footage shared on social media showed a fire raging at the large Soviet-era facility and black smoke belching from it. Reuters was able to confirm the location of the video as the Trypilska station.

“We need air defence and other defence support, not eye-closing and long discussions,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Telegram, condemning the attacks as “terror”.

Ukraine’s Special Operations Command has claimed it destroyed two enemy tanks, two cars, and a Russian dugout in the Donetsk region using drones.

“Operators of FPV drones of the 8th Separate Special Forces Brigade inflicted significant losses on the enemy in the Donetsk direction. The group destroyed a T-90 tank, a T-72 tank, and two vehicles over the last day,” the statement said.

Posting a video the force added an enemy dugout was destroyed, five Russian servicemen were killed and three more were injured.

Ukinform press agency claims the total combat losses of the Russian army in Ukraine since February 24, 2022 amounted to about 450,890 people.

The road is scarred by potholes and craters from shells, rockets and bombs – with mud everywhere, churned up by heavy military vehicles.

Ukraine’s parliament has passed a controversial long-awaited mobilisation bill as it seeks more troops to fight against Vladimir Putin’s invading forces – after a general said that Russian soldiers outnumbered Kyiv’s by up to ten times on the battlefield in the east.

Ukrainian commander Odin’s lower leg was blown off in a mine explosion last year. He’s now back in the trenches.

“I had offers to go back to my local academy as a teacher or to work at a draft office in Odesa,” the 32-year-old from the 28th Separate Mechanised Brigade said from a cramped bunker on the front line in the eastern region of Donetsk.

“I said I’m not interested in these positions.”

Pryncyp, a leading human rights organisation representing military personnel, put the number of amputees from the war at between 20,000 and 50,000.

Battlefields are littered with mines, while artillery and drone attacks are a constant menace, meaning the grim number is rising steadily.

Russia, Ukraine and China have been named as the world’s cybercrime hotspots in a new study ranking the most significant sources of cybercrime threats.

The index said Russia housed the greatest cybercrime threat, followed by Ukraine, China, the US and Nigeria. The UK was eighth on the list.

The bishop for Ukraine in London has urged the UK and the US to “honour their pledges” and not forget that Ukraine is fighting Russia to save the “rule of law and democracy”.

Two years ago, Russia launched a devastating full-scale invasion of Ukraine, capturing nearly a quarter of the country and displacing more than 10 million people. There are now at least six million Ukrainian refugees in Europe, including around 250,000 in the UK.

Drone attacks on the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine are “a consequential juncture” in the war in Ukraine and must stop, U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told his agency’s 35-nation Board of Governors on Thursday.

“The most recent attacks … have shifted us into an acutely consequential juncture in this war,” Grossi said in a statement to an emergency Board meeting called by Russia and Ukraine, adding that he wanted “to ensure these reckless attacks do not mark the beginning of a new and gravely dangerous front”.

Ukrainian regions in the Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, and Kyiv came under attack as local officials confirmed the strikes on energy infrastructure, substations, and power facilities.

Emergency power cuts for at least 200,000 people have been reported in Kyiv, officials said.

Russia‘s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday that Britain’s Special Boat Service had been operating in Ukraine and helping Ukrainian forces carry out attempted operations against Russian forces.

The Ukraine war has triggered the deepest crisis in Moscow’s relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. President Vladimir Putin has said that NATO military personnel are present already in Ukraine. The U.S. and key European allies have said they have no plans to send ground troops to Ukraine.

The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said it had foiled a plan by British special forces to land Ukrainian sabotage soldiers on the Tendrov Split, a sandbar in the Black Sea. It said it had captured a senior Ukrainian naval special forces soldier, and gave his name and date of birth.

The FSB said the Ukrainian special forces unit was “supervised by a unit of the Special Boat Service (SBS) which indicates the direct involvement of Britain in the conflict”.

A spokesperson for Britain’s Defence Ministry had no immediate response to a Reuters request for comment.

The SBS is a special forces regiment of the British navy that traces its history to the early days of World War Two.

The SBS has served in some of the biggest conflicts of the past 70 years including the Korean War, Northern Ireland, the Falklands War, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq.