Ukraine war briefing: Russia unleashes attack on energy infrastructure, triggering power cuts

A large Russian attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure led to power cuts in most regions, the Ukrainian energy minister said early on Saturday morning. “The enemy is massively attacking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure again. Because of this, emergency power outages have been introduced in a number of regions of Ukraine,” Svitlana Grynchuk posted. “Emergency power outages will be cancelled after the situation in the energy system stabilises.”

Drones hit energy infrastructure in the Odesa region of Ukraine’s south late on Friday evening, said the regional governor, Oleg Kiper. “There was damage to an energy infrastructure facility,” he said, reporting no dead or wounded.

Ukraine’s Naftogaz said it would import at least 300m cubic metres of US liquid natural gas through an agreement with Poland’s Orlen, a gas trader and pipeline operator, to help stabilise the heating season ahead. “Despite the enemy’s plans, Ukraine will have light and heat this winter,” said Grynchuk, the energy minister.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that Russia was massing troops near the city of Vovchansk in Ukraine’s north-eastern Kharkiv region. Speaking to reporters in Kyiv, Ukraine’s president said Moscow’s assault on the eastern city of Pokrovsk was aimed at demonstrating battlefield success to Donald Trump, the US president. The Institute for the Study of War said Russian troops had advanced marginally near the mostly destroyed, partly Russian-held city in pursuit of bringing Kharkiv city within range of tube artillery. Ukrainian army units reported that Russian troops filmed themselves raising a flag in Vovchansk, only to be quickly killed by Ukrainian drones.

The Kremlin was forced to deny strong rumours that the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has fallen out of favour with Vladimir Putin. Lavrov, 75, was absent from a big Kremlin meeting this week that he would typically attend, and Putin chose someone else to attend a G20 summit in South Africa later this month, a role that Lavrov has filled in the past. For two weeks in a row the foreign ministry has also not disclosed Lavrov’s travel plans and speaking engagements for the following week. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there was “nothing true” in reports that Lavrov was in trouble.

The US has granted Hungary a one-year exemption from sanctions targeting Russian oil and gas, according to a White House official. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, visited Trump on Friday. The White House official noted that Hungary had committed to buying US liquefied natural gas with contracts worth about $600m.

Most Russian nationals will now have to apply for a new visa each time they travel to the EU after it cancelled their right to apply for multiple-entry visas. The European Commission said this would allow for “close and frequent scrutiny of applicants to mitigate any potential security risk”. Numerous acts of sabotage in European countries have been traced to Russian operatives. Exceptions would be made for people “whose reliability and integrity is without doubt” like dissidents, independent journalists or human rights defenders, and for close family members of Russians living in the EU, or family members of EU citizens living in Russia, the commission said.

The sanctioned Russian tank and railcar manufacturer Uralvagonzavod (UVZ) was planning job cuts of up to 10%, local media reported, as the company confirmed a restructure to reduce costs. UVZ has publicly said it produces T-90M battle tanks and modernises T-72B3M tanks. Some staff were moved to a four-day week last month as the company grapples with a decline in demand for freight railcars due to a steep fall in Russian exports. Russia’s biggest industrial companies, including automakers and mining and metallurgical companies, are putting employees on furlough or sacking them as the war economy slows, domestic demand stalls, and exports dry up, sources and companies have told Reuters.

More than 1,400 citizens from three dozen African countries are fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, Kyiv’s foreign minister said on Friday. Andriy Sybiha said Russia was enticing Africans to sign contracts that he described as “equivalent to … a death sentence … Most of them are immediately sent to the so-called ‘meat assaults’, where they are quickly killed.” South Africa said on Thursday it would investigate how 17 of its citizens joined mercenary forces after the men sent distress calls for help to return home. Kenya has said some of its citizens were detained in military camps across Russia after unknowingly getting caught up in the war.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday appointed a new commander for drone air defences and tasked him with their improvement. The president’s office said Yuri Cherevashenko had experience in helping create Ukraine’s first group of reaction forces of air defence mobile brigades and he played a role in developing interceptor drones. Ukraine’s top commander, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, said in September that Ukraine was looking to improve performance by interceptor drones to create a “layered system” of defence.