Blackouts across Ukraine amid wave of Russian strikes

Europe's biggest nuclear power plant, in Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine, has been cut off from external power supplies, the UN's nuclear watchdog has said.

The plant is now relying on diesel generators to power cooling and essential nuclear safety functions, the IAEA said this evening.

The organisation has repeatedly warned in recent months that fighting around the plant could cause a nuclear accident, with both sides accusing each other of shelling the site.

A major concern is the risk of loss of power to the facility. Electricity is needed to pump coolant around the nuclear reactor cores, without which the fuel would overheat and potentially start to melt.

"The latest incident... highlights the increasingly precarious and challenging nuclear safety and security situation," the IAEA said in a statement.

Three other nuclear power plants were also disconnected from the power grid following today's missile strikes.

Read more: How risky is the standoff over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant?

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky will address an urgent UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday after Russia’s latest strikes spurred blackouts in neighbouring Moldova, two diplomats told the AFP news agency.

Zelensky will address the emergency debate - requested by Ukraine and due to start at 16:00 local time (21:00 GMT) in New York – via video link, AFP reports.

On Twitter, Zelensky said that the “murder of civilians, ruining of civilian infrastructure are acts of terror”, adding that Ukraine continues to demand a “resolute response” by the international community.

He also said that Ukraine “will not be scared by cowardly inhumane terrorist attacks” by Russia, and thanked US President Joe Biden and the United States for the new $400m (£330m) military package announced today.

Today's missile attacks have destroyed key infrastructure in Ukraine, leaving large parts of its capital and other big cities without electricity.

Apartment blocks in Vyshhorod, a city near Kyiv, were destroyed amid a series of Russian attacks. Firefighters were working throughout the day at the site, clearing rubble and trying to rescue those trapped and injured.

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Electricity supplies were also knocked out by the strikes, leading to blackouts across the cities of Lviv, Kyiv and Odesa. This was the scene as night fell over the Ukrainian capital.

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Dr Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) regional director for Europe, has warned that Ukraine faces a “humanitarian catastrophe” amid Russia’s strikes on its infrastructure.

“Hospitals cannot function without energy, maternity units need incubators, vaccine depots need refrigerators, surgery needs also electricity, and what we see is about 50% of the civilian energy infrastructure is being destroyed,” he told the BBC, adding that the situation could get worse with temperatures expected to plummet to minus 20 degrees Celsius.

Speaking from Dnipro, where he had been visiting psychiatric centres, he also highlighted the issue of mental health as a priority, and revealed he had heard stories of sexual violence or rape from those in recently liberated areas.

Today's Russian air strikes killed six people across the country and wounded 36, according to the head of the National Police, Ihor Klymenko.

He added that a total of 16 infrastructure facilities and residential buildings were hit in the attacks, which caused mass power outages in large parts of Ukraine, including the cities of Lviv, Odessa and Kyiv.

Earlier, Kyiv's mayor said a 17-year-old girl was among three people killed in the capital.

Ukraine's Air Force says air defences intercepted 51 out of 70 cruise missiles that were fired.

The grandmother of a newborn baby has said her daughter's child was killed by a Russian missile.

Emergency services say the missile struck a maternity hospital in the Ukraine-held town of Vilnyansk overnight. The mother, who was the only woman in the facility at the time, and a doctor were rescued from the rubble, officials say.

Ukraine’s deputy health minister, Oleksiy Yaremenko, says the “whole country is under attack” after Russia launched a fresh round of missile strikes across the country.

His comments follow news that a two-day-old baby was killed in an attack on a hospital in the Zaporizhzhia region overnight.

"Today the whole country is under attack, we have already seen that Kyiv and other cities, they all have had their electricity systems damaged. But the attacks are not over, so we will see the result in a couple of hours," he says, adding that all patients had been moved out of the hospital where the newborn was killed.

"We engaged a couple more emergency teams to ensure that all patients will be transferred to another hospital in Zaporizhzhia," he says.

He adds that while most hospitals in the country are still functioning, more than 1000 medical facilities have been damaged and 143 fully destroyed.

"Now in preparedness for winter, all hospitals are equipped with alternative bio-generators, so that we can be sure that medical support will be provided for all our people," he says.

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UK’s Defence Ministry says Russia has used Iranian-made drones to target medical facilities in Ukraine, and that its supplies were running low.

In an intelligence update, it said the drone campaign was likely conceived to “make up for its shortage of cruise missiles”, but that the approach has had “limited success” because most had been shot down.

It says Russia has “likely very nearly exhausted” its stock of drones – officially called unmanned aerial vehicles – with a strike not being reported since 17 November.

However it warns that Russia can probably procure drones from overseas more rapidly than it can manufacture new cruise missiles domestically.

You can read more about the different types of drones being used by both Russia and Ukraine here.

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We've been hearing from Christina Katrakis, an ambassador for the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, who's currently sitting in darkness - save for a torch - in the capital Kyiv.

"In our place we have no heat, no light, also water has been turned down in the city and the mayor has asked people to store up on water," she told the BBC.

She says the attack on a civilian building in Kyiv, as well as important infrastructure, is a "cowardly Russian response to the European parliament" vote today calling Russia "a state sponsor of terrorism".

As we reported earlier, the European parliament website was taken down in a suspected cyber attack shortly after the vote.

The parliament's president, Roberta Metsola, said in a tweet that a pro-Kremlin (pro-Russian) group was behind the attack.

Western intelligence officials say Ukraine has been subjected to unprecedented attacks from a range of Russian intelligence services. Russia has repeatedly denied claims it has carried out cyber attacks.

Russia's deadly missile strikes on Ukraine today didn't just hit Ukraine's power infrastructure, they also led to more than half of neighbouring Moldova's electricity being cut. In President Maia Sandu's words: "Russia left Moldova in the dark."

Power has now started to return in the capital, Chisinau, where a third of the population lives, but some districts are still in blackout.

Energy analyst Sergiu Profilat explains that back in March Moldova and Ukraine were connected to the European grid, and because one of the main connection points is between Moldova and Romania, the power turns off when Ukraine is hit. "This power line isn’t hit by missiles but it shuts down automatically to protect the system."

Moldova is also reliant on Russia for its gas imports - and it's accused Moscow of using energy as blackmail after Russia's Gazprom said it could start cutting supplies that pass through Ukraine.

Profilat points out that the Gazprom threat has pushed electricity tariffs up three times this month alone: "The average salary in Moldova before tax is $550 (£450) a month whereas the poverty line in Germany is $1,200."

As we reported earlier, much of neighbouring Moldova saw a “massive blackout” after today’s strikes across Ukraine, according to officials there.

However, some power now appears to be returning to the capital Chisinau, although not necessarily to surrounding towns and villages, according to posts on social media.

Meanwhile, darkness has descended upon Kyiv, with much of the city experiencing blackouts, as the picture below shows.

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Meanwhile, a Russian opposition politician who spoke out publicly about the alleged war crimes committed by Russian soldiers in one Ukrainian town has had his detention extended by another six months.

Ilya Yashin – an ally of another jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny – is accused of spreading “fake” information about the Russian army under legislation introduced after President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

In a video posted to YouTube in April, Yashin spoke about the “murder of civilians” in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv where Russian troops are accused of war crimes. Yashin called the incident “a massacre”.

He has been held in detention awaiting trial since he was arrested in the summer while walking through a Moscow park.

On Wednesday, prosecutors argued that Yashin should continue to be held in detention because he had "inflicted considerable damage to Russia" and "increased political tensions during the special military operation" – Moscow’s term for its offensive.

At the end of his hearing in a court in Moscow, Yashin smiled and flashed a peace sign as some of his supporters clapped.

"I love my country and in order to live here I am ready to pay with my freedom," he said. "I am a Russian patriot.”

If found guilty, the Moscow city councillor is facing a potential jail term of 10 years for criticising the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine has been experiencing attacks on critical infrastructure for a number of weeks now.

Last week, nationwide attacks on Ukraine left entire regions practically cut off from the energy supply. Today's attacks renew fears that this will be a dangerous winter for millions of Ukrainians who might have to face several months of harsh wintry weather with no heating or electricity.

Last week, the first snow of the year fell on Kyiv, where the temperature now is around -3C and set to fall further over the next few days.

The Ukrainian government has long warned citizens that Russia will continue to target energy infrastructure ahead of Ukraine's famously harsh winters.

Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said Russia's latest attack tries to "inflict maximum damage on our energy system on the eve of winter".

In October, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk even urged Ukrainian refugees not to return until spring to help ease pressure on the energy system, saying that as temperatures dropped, the situation would "only get worse".

"If it is possible, stay abroad for the time being," she said at the time, adding: "We need to survive the winter."

Following the latest attacks on Ukraine's energy grid, the Ukrainian energy ministry put out a statement on Facebook saying that the "vast majority" of electricity consumers have had their supplies cut off after Ukraine's nuclear power stations, and most of its thermal and hydropower stations, were disconnected from the grid.

"But Russia will not be able to intimidate Ukrainians. Ukrainians are not afraid of the cold. Ukrainians are not afraid of the dark. Ukrainians are not afraid of terrorists," the ministry said in a statement.

President Volodymyr Zelensky's chief of staff has reported a prisoner swap which saw 35 Ukrainian soldiers and one civilian exchanged for 35 Russian servicemen held in Ukraine.

Andriy Yermak said the Ukrainian prisoners of war included fighters who spent weeks defending the Azovstal steelworks plant in the key south-eastern port city of Mariupol. Nearly 1,000 fighters handed themselves over to the Russian side in May after they were ordered to surrender by Ukraine's top military commanders following a deadly and destructive battle for the vast steelworks.

Last month the BBC's Hugo Bachega spoke to one of the fighters released in an earlier prison swap, Illia Samoilenko, who said they were being kept in inhumane conditions by Russia.

The Russian Ministry of Defence has also confirmed the swap, saying its servicemen would be flown to Moscow to undergo treatment and rehabilitation.

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The United States has authorised an additional $400m (£330m) in military aid to Ukraine, including weapons, munitions and air defence equipment, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said in a statement.

"The artillery ammunition, precision fires, air defence missiles, and tactical vehicles that we are providing will best serve Ukraine on the battlefield," he said.

The deal will include more than 200 generators to help Ukraine deal with power outages caused by Russia's attacks on energy infrastructure. They are "intended to support both civilian and military power needs" and are aimed at easing pressure on the grid, said Pentagon Press Secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder.

As the below chart from October shows, the United States has committed by far the most aid to Ukraine since the start of the war.

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We're hearing that the European Parliament's website was disrupted by a cyber attack shortly after it passed a resolution recognising Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism earlier today.

The man in charge of communications for the parliament, Jaume Duch, described it as a distributed denial of service attack (DDOS), which is an attempt to take a website offline by overwhelming it with internet traffic.

The European Parliament's resolution earlier said that "the deliberate attacks and atrocities committed by Russian forces and their proxies against civilians in Ukraine, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and other serious violations of international and humanitarian law amount to acts of terror and constitute war crimes”.

The measure, which is largely symbolic because it is non binding, passed overwhelmingly.

As we've been reporting, Russia has launched multiple missile strikes across Ukraine today, hitting both residential and critical infrastructure sites and causing mass power outages across the country.

According to the Ukrainian Air Force, air defences managed to intercept 51 of the 70 cruise missiles fired by Russia today. Some of the explosions have been reported in the south and south-east of the country.

The Interfax-Ukraine news agency has reported that Ukraine's Khmelnytskyy and South Ukrainian nuclear power plants have been disconnected from the national electricity grid following the Russian air attack.

MP Oleksiy Honcharenko said that the power units of the South Ukrainian NPP - Ukraine's second-largest, in the south-west - had an "emergency shutdown".

The mayor of the north-western town of Netishyn, near the Khmelnytskyy power plant, was quoted as saying that the units "have been halted" and there was no electricity, water or heating in the town.

The last major Russian missile attack, which occurred last week, also caused the Khmelnytskyy NPP and one power unit of the western Rivne NPP to be disconnected from the energy grid.