Ukrainian drone strikes damaged energy networks in Russia-occupied parts of southern Ukraine, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power, according to Kremlin-installed authorities there.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Moscow has kept up its hammering of Ukraine\u2019s energy grid in overnight attacks that killed at least two people, according to Ukrainian officials.<\/p>\n
More than 200,000 households in the Russia-held part of Ukraine\u2019s southern Zaporizhzhia region had no electricity on Sunday, according to the Kremlin-installed local governor.<\/p>\n
In a Telegram post, Yevgeny Balitsky said that nearly 400 settlements have had their supply cut, because of damage to power networks from Ukrainian drone strikes.<\/p>\n
Russia has hammered Ukraine\u2019s power grid, especially in winter, throughout the nearly four-year war. The strikes aim to weaken Ukrainians\u2019 will to resist in a strategy that Kyiv officials call \u201cweaponising winter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russia targeted energy infrastructure in Odesa region overnight on Sunday, according to Ukraine\u2019s Emergency Service. A fire broke out and was promptly extinguished.<\/p>\n
At least six people were wounded in the Dnipropetrovsk region from Russian attacks, the emergency service said.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a Telegram post that repairing the country\u2019s energy system remains challenging, \u201cbut we are doing everything we can to restore everything as quickly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that two people were killed in overnight attacks across the country that struck Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi and Odesa.<\/p>\n
In total, more than 1,300 attack drones, 1,050 guided aerial bombs and 29 missiles of various types were used by Russia to strike Ukraine this week, Zelensky said.<\/p>\n
US talks<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Russia deliberately delays the diplomatic process, the world\u2019s response should be decisive: more help for Ukraine and more pressure on the aggressor,” Zelensky said.<\/p>\n
He spoke the day after a Ukrainian delegation arrived in the United States for talks on a US-led diplomatic push to end the war.<\/p>\n
On Friday, Zelensky said that the delegation would try to finalise with US officials documents for a proposed peace settlement that relate to postwar security guarantees and economic recovery.<\/p>\n
If American officials approve the proposals, the US and Ukraine could sign the documents next week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Zelensky said at a Kyiv news conference with Czech President Petr Pavel. <\/p>\n
Trump plans to be in Davos, according to organisers. <\/p>\n
Russia would still need to be consulted on the proposals.<\/p>\n
Drones strike Russian Caucasus<\/p>\n
Separately, in Russia\u2019s Caucasus mountains, two children and an adult were wounded overnight as debris from a Ukrainian drone fell on a five-story residential building in North Ossetia, according to the regional governor.<\/p>\n
Seventy people had to be evacuated from the building, in the town of Beslan, and there was damage to its roof and windows, Gov. Sergei Menyaylo said in a Telegram post on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s Defence Ministry said that its forces shot down or suppressed 63 Ukrainian drones overnight over Russia and the occupied Crimean Peninsula. <\/p>\n
One person was hospitalised in Russia\u2019s Krasnodar region east of Crimea following a drone strike, local authorities said.<\/p>\n
Nuclear plant repairs<\/p>\n
Ukrainian crews have started repair works on the backup power line connecting the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to the power grid, under a ceasefire brokered by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based UN organisation said in an X post on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The fate of the plant, occupied by Russia and the largest in Europe, is a central issue in ongoing US-brokered peace talks.<\/p>\n
\u201cCrucial repair works on the essential back up Ferosplavna-1 330 kV power line connecting Ukraine\u2019s ZNPP to the grid have begun under another IAEA-brokered ceasefire,\u201d the agency said in the post.<\/p>\n
The 330-kilovolt power line, which was damaged and disconnected because of fighting, is crucial to supplying the plant with electricity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukrainian drone strikes damaged energy networks in Russia-occupied parts of southern Ukraine, leaving hundreds of thousands of people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,1979,40,38,41,39,1745],"class_list":["post-240029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-russia-invades-ukraine","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-uk-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}