Russian attacks leave 600,000 Ukrainians without power

Ankur Desai (0:00)

This is The Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

Hi, I'm Uncle Desai, and at 15 Hours GMT on Wednesday 14th October, these are our main stories. Russia launches another massive overnight attack on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, ignoring an energy ceasefire announced by President Trump. The Ukrainian accused of organizing the blowing up of the Russian-German Nord Stream gas pipeline goes on trial in Hamburg. And the Saudi court overturns the death sentence of blasphemy imposed on a Sri Lankan migrant worker. Also in this podcast, the Chinese loneliness economy, in which people hire themselves out as companions who can help solve problems or just be there to listen.

Ying Wei (0:46)

The elderly treat us like their children and we treat them like our own parents. We are trying to really understand their needs.

Ankur Desai (0:55)

And the world's oldest shipwreck found so far, the vessel was built about 4,700 years ago and sank off the coast of modern day Turkey.

The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Russian missile and drone attacks overnight have left at least 600,000 people there without power. He said critical energy infrastructure in Kyiv and in the north eastern city of Kharkiv had been damaged for the second night with no advance warning about Russian ballistic missiles from its partners. At least six people were killed. President Trump denies that Washington's intelligence sharing with Ukraine has stopped. But a week of increasingly frustrated exchanges between Kyiv and Washington has demonstrated the strain on NATO over the conflict. The Alliance's secretary general Mark Rutte, who's in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, said Ukraine's allies needed to do more to bolster Ukraine's air defences, as Russian aggression towards Ukraine was unrelenting.

Mark Rutte (1:56)

With winter coming and with Russia's aggression unrelenting, Allies need to do more, especially in support of air defence. Russia continues its attacks on Ukrainian civilians, and it continues its hybrid campaign against NATO Allies.

Ankur Desai (2:12)

Our Ukraine correspondent Dan Johnson was in the capital Kyiv at the scene of one of the overnight attacks. He gave us this update.

Dan Johnson (2:19)

I'm right on the furthest edge of Kyiv, to the northeast of the city centre. This is one apartment block that was hit by Russian missiles late last night, with very little warning. People say the sirens were going as the missiles actually hit, so there was no time for them to take shelter. That's why two of the residents of this block were killed, many more injured, and those who survived are going through the wreckage now and seeing what's left of their homes in the main. These are homes that are destroyed and will be unlivable. People have been throwing out all the rubble, all the smashed glass, the splintered furniture. The emergency services are still here in huge number. They're just starting to board up the windows here. But this is not the only place that was hit last night. The energy network, the power grid, has also come on a renewed Russian attack, despite that energy ceasefire that Donald Trump announced. And the issue is that without that intelligence, that early warning, Ukraine can't sound the sirens, can't tell people to take shelter and can't do anything to try to shoot down those incoming missiles, even if it has the air defense interceptors to do that. So its skies are vulnerable. And the message is that for the past two days, that intelligence has not been shared in the reliable, open way that Ukraine needs. The Americans are denying that they've stopped sharing that intelligence and the EU has just issued a statement saying it has no indication that intelligence sharing has stopped. But the Ukrainians certainly feel like they're not getting the flow of information that they were and that is leaving people vulnerable to this sort of attack. Zelensky is in London today. He's visiting the British Prime Minister Andy Burnham at Downing Street. They're going to have talks. He's gone there, presumably.

It's the kind of thing he's done before when relations with the Americans have hit a low. He's gone to the European allies that he believes he can count on. The British are going to bring forward a delivery of interceptor missiles that Ukraine can use to shoot down Russian jet drones. But there is that desperate shortage of Patriot interceptors that are needed to defend against the sort of ballistic missiles that hit here and targeted the energy network last night. But for those, even if they had the Patriot interceptors, for them to have any impact, they do need that intelligence from the satellite system that gives them the early warning of what is being fired, how quick is it moving, what trajectory it's on, and where is it being aimed at. That is the puzzle of intelligence that Ukrainians rely on to even try to keep themselves safe. They are desperately vulnerable without that. And there is also disruption to the Starlink system, which Ukraine's military relies on heavily, not just to defend against incoming drones and missiles, but also to launch its own long-range drones towards Russian targets. That system has also been limited and restricted overnight, we are told. That's a system that Elon Musk runs. The suspicion is that this is all coordinated. Sources are saying it can be no coincidence that these two things have happened at the same time after such a bitter weekend of recriminations between the American president and Volodymyr Zelensky. He will be trying to repair that relationship because it is so important. Often geopolitics, diplomacy, that sort of high-level discussion can feel a long way from the ordinary lives and the ordinary homes of normal Ukrainians, but the people here have had such a vivid illustration of just what risk they are under if those sorts of discussions don't produce the results that they need to keep them safe.