Zelensky says allies once again withheld intelligence warning of imminent Russian strikes on Kyiv

At least three people were killed and another 21 were injured in a Russian airstrike on Kyiv in the early hours of Wednesday, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine has announced.

Among the civilian targets to be hit were a high-rise residential building, where two people were killed, and a non-residential building, where another civilian lost their life. The State Emergency Service of Ukraine said that casualty numbers were still rising as people continued to seek medical assistance.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the main target of the attack had been the capital’s Thermal Power Plant No. 4, one of Kyiv’s key energy facilities. Power outages were being reported in the city following the attack, part of Russia’s now annual campaign to destroy as many power plants as possible in the run-up to Ukraine’s fierce winter in an attempt to undermine national morale.

According to Zelensky, Kyiv once again received no military intelligence from its Western partners warning it about the impending Russian attack, the second time this week he's publicly admitted being cut out of the loop by his nominal allies.

Though Zelensky didn’t mention the United States by name, it seems likely that the Trump administration has already acted on its threat to end intelligence sharing with Kyiv unless Ukraine agrees to end its targeted strikes on Russian energy infrastructure.

On Saturday, the US president blindsided both the Ukrainian government and his NATO allies by announcing that he’d agreed a deal with Vladimir Putin allowing Russia to export diesel to the United States, despite the fact that the US imposed strict sanctions on Moscow following the invasion of Ukraine.

Ukrainian drones attacked the city of Balakovo in Russia’s southern Saratov region overnight, killing one person, according to Governor Roman Busargin. Reports by Russian Telegram news channels Astra and Supernova+ that the likely target of the strike was a data centre used by state-owned banking provider Sberbank were subsequently confirmed by the company, making it the fourth strike in the past week on Russian tech infrastructure.

According to Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin, the Russian capital was targeted by some 493 Ukrainian attack drones overnight, though he added that 180 of them had been intercepted on their approach to the city.