Russia Strikes Ukraine Power Plant, Residents Left Freezing
(Reuters) - Russian drone strikes have damaged a thermal power plant in Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine overnight, leaving 46,000 consumers without heating as temperatures plunge below freezing, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Sunday.
"This was done deliberately to leave people without heat in sub-zero temperatures and create a humanitarian catastrophe," Shmyhal said on the Telegram messenger app.
Russia attacked Ukraine with 143 drones overnight but Ukrainian military said it had shot down 95 of them while 46 did not reach their targets, likely thanks to the use of electromagnetic countermeasures that disrupt drone attacks.
At least one person was injured in the overnight attacks which also damaged houses in the Kyiv region, Ukrainian officials said. The temperature in Mykolaiv is expected to fall to minus 7 degrees Celsius (19.4 Fahrenheit) on Sunday night.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy again urged Western allies to give Ukraine more air defences, with Russia now holding 20% of Ukrainian territory and slowly advancing in the east as Moscow's full-scale invasion nears its third anniversary.
He cited data showing that in the past week Russia had unleashed about 1,220 aerial bombs, over 850 drones and more than 40 missiles into government-controlled areas of Ukraine.
There was no immediate comment from Russia.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia started with its invasion in Ukraine nearly three years ago.
"Europe and the world must be better protected from such evil and prepared to confront it," Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram.
"This requires a strong, united foreign policy and pressure on (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, who started this war and is now expanding it globally," he said.
"Together with Europe, the U.S., and all our partners, we can end this war with a just and lasting peace."
However, U.S. President Donald Trump shocked European allies and Ukraine this week by calling Putin without consulting them or Kyiv beforehand and declaring an immediate start to peace talks.
Trump's Ukraine envoy then said Europe won't have a seat at the table for Ukraine peace talks, after Washington sent a questionnaire to European capitals to ask what they could contribute to security guarantees for Kyiv.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv; editing by Kate Mayberry, Kirsten Donovan, Mark Heinrich and Clelia Oziel)
