Kyiv is attacked again, apparently kamikaze drones sail towards the Ukrainian capital. More than 220 Iranian drones have been shot down since September. Because of the Russian attacks on the infrastructure, the power supply has been severely restricted since today – the Internet is also affected. The Ukraine war in the ticker.
Thursday, October 20, 3:30 a.m.: According to Netblocks, an internet surveillance group, internet connectivity in several Ukrainian cities is limited due to massive power outages. According to a tweet from Netblocks, connectivity in Kyiv fell to 81 percent of normal levels. The hardest-hit cities were Bucha, Irpin and Brovary, where internet access was below 70 percent of its normal level.
The power outages are a consequence of Russia’s massive attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and are timed.
9:36 p.m .: The Russian attacks on Ukraine have apparently hit the country’s energy infrastructure sensitively. The result: From tomorrow, Thursday (October 20), power consumption is to be severely restricted, reports the “Kyiv Independent” and cites statements by the deputy head of the Presidential Office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko. Accordingly, there could now be regular power outages if consumption were not resolutely throttled.
4:27 p.m.: Ukrainian forces have already shot down over 220 Iranian Shahed-136 kamikaze drones. “Since the first launch of an Iranian Kamikaze Shahed-136 drone on the territory of Ukraine by October 19, the air defense defenses of the Ukrainian Air Force and other components of the Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed 223 drones of this type,” the press service quoted “Ukrainska Pravda” as saying of the Urcain Air Force.
October 19, 2:50 p.m.: Ukraine has reported more Russian missile attacks on central regions of the country. The authorities announced that the Vinnytsia region, among other things, had been shelled on Wednesday afternoon. There were initially no details about the damage or casualties.
Explosion noises could also be heard in Kyiv, as reported by a dpa reporter in the capital. According to the regional governor Oleksiy Kuleba, the Ukrainian air defense was active. Ukrainian forces reported that Russia fired rockets and combat drones at Kyiv from the territory of its ally Belarus. Information from the war zones is difficult to verify.
Two Russian missiles are said to have been intercepted in the Chernihiv region north of Kyiv. In the meantime, there was again an air alert across the country.
For about a week and a half, Russia has again been bombarding the neighboring country with rockets and drones. Almost eight months after the start of the war, Moscow says it is primarily targeting the Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Residential houses were also hit several times. According to information from Kyiv, more than 70 people have already died as a result of the latest wave of attacks.
11:35 p.m.: Other personnel at the Russian-occupied Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia have been arrested. This was reported by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna on Tuesday evening. A deputy manager of the nuclear power plant and two other employees were recently arrested. While the manager has been released, the others are not yet free, it said.
The head of the plant had previously been temporarily detained by the Russian side. He was released in early October.
Several IAEA experts are constantly in the nuclear power plant to monitor the situation in Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. They reported on Tuesday that the last remaining main power line for cooling the fuel rods was cut for the third time in ten days, but was restored on Monday.
3:33 p.m .: According to Ukrainian information, the ongoing Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy supply facilities have meant that more than 1,100 places in the country are without electricity. This was announced by the presidential office in Kyiv in the afternoon. President Zelenskyy had previously said that the attacks destroyed 30 percent of all electricity plants within a week.
3:18 p.m .: As a result of the recent Russian shelling of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least three people were killed on Tuesday. Klitschko wrote on Telegram that these were employees of critical infrastructure objects that had been hit. He did not say exactly which objects were involved. It had previously become known that there were problems with the electricity and water supply in parts of the metropolis.
Other Ukrainian regions, including Mykolayiv in the south and Kharkiv in the east, were again heavily shelled with rockets and combat drones during the night. The Russian military recently announced that it would target energy installations.
A spokesman for the civil defense agency in Kyiv said more than 70 people had been killed and more than 240 injured across the country since the widespread Russian attacks began more than a week ago. A total of more than 380 buildings were also damaged, including around 240 residential buildings.
1:57 p.m .: According to the Russian army, it has had a minor success in eastern Ukraine. In the Kharkov region, the settlement of Gorobivka was captured, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Tuesday. This could not be checked independently at first, Ukraine did not confirm it. In its morning situation report, the general staff in Kyiv reported only successfully repelled attempts by the Russians to attack both in Kharkiv and in the adjacent Donetsk region.
As part of its counter-offensive, the Ukrainian army drove the Russian troops out of large parts of the Kharkiv region in mid-September. This brought the military leadership in Moscow sharp criticism from hardliners in Russian politics.
You can read more reports on the Ukraine conflict on the following pages.
