Kyiv: all three heating plants hit, 600,000 without power

Overnight between October 13 and 14, Russia fired 39 ballistic missiles and more than 120 drones at energy and critical infrastructure in Kyiv, the Kyiv region and Kharkiv, and Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhiy Korecki said all three of Kyiv’s combined heat and power plants were hit. According to President Volodymyr Zelensky, at least 600,000 people were left without electricity. The strike came three days after US President Donald Trump announced on Sunday, October 11, that Moscow and Kyiv had agreed to an energy truce, and the Ukrainian side says it kept to it: Zelensky says that in the two days since Trump’s announcement Ukraine has not targeted Russian refineries or the energy sector at all.

We previously reported on Zelensky’s accusation that Russia is breaking the truce. Kyiv stresses another circumstance alongside tonight’s missiles: the warning from partners, it says, never came.

What exactly was hit?

The attack began on Tuesday evening, October 13, and lasted until Wednesday morning. Prime Minister Korecki said on Telegram that the targets were power system facilities:

“The targets of the Russian ballistic missiles were power system facilities in Kyiv, Kharkiv and the region.”

Besides the three heating plants, facilities in the Kyiv region that supply electricity to the capital and the central regions were also hit. Zelensky cites damage to 26 energy facilities and four oil and gas sites. In the morning hours all three Kyiv metro lines briefly stopped, and the shutdown of a pumping station dropped water pressure in the Pechersk district. Kyiv Independent reporters counted more than ten explosions between 4:45 and 6:45 a.m.

The Ukrainian Air Force says it neutralized four ballistic missiles and 115 drones.

How many were killed and wounded?

The numbers depend on which source you read. Late on the evening of October 13, a missile hit a nine-story apartment building in the Desnianskyi district and set off a large fire. According to Kyiv police, at least three women died in that building, and two more people were killed in the Holosiivskyi district.

• Kyiv Independent, citing police, reports 5 dead and 25 wounded, among them a seven-year-old girl.
• The Associated Press, also citing Kyiv police, reports 5 dead and 36 wounded.
• An earlier United24 report mentioned 3 dead and 22 wounded.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said 16 people were hospitalized, four of them in serious condition. A resident of the building who gave his name as Maksim told Kyiv Independent that he and his partner had to shelter in a hallway after nearby blasts shattered the windows: “Everything happened very fast. We didn’t even realize what was going on.”

The warning that never came

The hardest political question of the night is not the number of missiles but what failed to arrive before them. Presidential adviser Dmytro Lytvyn told reporters that allies gave no early warning of the launches for a second day in a row, which he called unusual. In a statement, the Air Force said it received no information from partners about launches from enemy territory on either October 12 or 13. Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat added that partners did not warn about the first wave but did warn about the next three. Zelensky confirmed there was no warning:

“Our system detected these missiles almost only when they were approaching Kyiv.”

Trump claims the US has not cut off intelligence sharing with Ukraine, and a member of the Ukrainian parliament’s defense committee, who did not want to be named, told the Associated Press that sharing with international partners has not stopped. Kyiv Independent, however, reported that according to its sources, US officials threatened Ukrainian military and government leaders with a halt to intelligence sharing and to the PURL program, in order to protect Russian refineries. “They called all the top military officials with threats,” one Ukrainian official told the paper.

On October 13, when asked by reporters, Trump declined to say that Russia had violated the truce. The Kremlin has not confirmed it either: its spokesman says only that contacts continue.

Starlink, London and the Russian side

Serhiy Beskrestnov, an adviser to President Zelensky, wrote on Telegram that SpaceX had throttled the speed of Starlink terminals on Ukrainian drones overnight. The drones rely on that link for control in flight. He called it a politically motivated move:

“It is obvious that this move cannot be a coincidence and is linked to the current political situation.”

SpaceX did not respond right away.

Zelensky was due in London on Wednesday for talks with British Prime Minister Andy Burnham. The British government announced an air defense package worth 45 million pounds, about 60 million dollars. Burnham said ahead of the visit:

“My message to the Ukrainian people could not be clearer: we stand with you for as long as it takes.”

Zelensky called on social media for a response from the world: “Russia has squandered the chance for de-escalation and has clearly chosen to continue its insane war of extermination.” The attack, he said, was “entirely deliberate and demonstrative in scale.”

The Russian Defense Ministry claims it hit six power plants in Kyiv, the Kyiv region and Kharkiv and shot down 902 Ukrainian drones overnight. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin says 493 drones flew toward the Moscow region, 180 of them intercepted near the capital, with no damage or casualties. In the Saratov region, according to Governor Roman Busargin, one person was killed and several residential buildings were damaged, and Sberbank confirmed an attack on its data center in Saratov.