Russia wants to turn off the power to Ukraine – and according to Kyiv, it is also relying on cheap Iranian kamikaze drones. Selenskyj laments the massive destruction of domestic power plants within a week. NATO promises quick help to strengthen air defenses. An expert sees Kiev’s offensives stopped. The 237th day of the war at a glance.
Stoltenberg promises speedy air defense aid
After numerous Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power infrastructure, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance would deliver anti-drone defense systems to Kyiv “in the coming days”. This is intended to help the country defend itself against Iranian-made drones that Russia is using to destroy critical infrastructure in Ukraine.
Power outages: Selenskyj complains about “critical situation”
According to its own statements, the Ukraine is currently in a precarious situation. “The situation is now critical across the country,” said the President’s Office in Kyiv. According to Head of State Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Russia destroyed 30 percent of Ukraine’s electricity plants within a week. More than 1,100 locations were without power, according to state emergency services. In the meantime, up to 4,000 places have been without electricity because of the attacks since October 7th. The attacks killed more than 70 people and injured around 240 others. In parts of the capital Kyiv there were also interruptions in the electricity and water supply during the day, as the local electricity supplier DTEK announced.
The Russian Defense Ministry spoke of attacks with high-precision long-range weapons on Ukraine’s army and energy infrastructure. All targets were hit. According to Ukrainian sources, the Russian army also used Iranian kamikaze drones in the attacks. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Facebook that he had proposed to President Zelensky to sever diplomatic relations with Tehran. At a press conference, Kuleba announced that he would ask Israel for military aid and the immediate delivery of air defense systems.
Iranian threats: Kremlin pretends to be clueless
When asked by a journalist, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had “no information” about the use of Iranian drones in Ukraine by the Russian army. The US State Department had previously threatened sanctions against companies and countries involved in Iran’s drone program.
According to government and diplomatic sources in Tehran, Iran has already promised to deliver more drones and surface-to-surface missiles. A corresponding agreement had already been reached on October 6th. At the time, Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Mochber and other Tehran officials were in Moscow holding talks with the Russian government over arms sales, four Iranian officials familiar with the matter said.
Kiev’s military intelligence sees Russia’s missile stocks exhausted
The Ukrainian military intelligence service HUR assumes that the Russian stockpile of many types of missiles has reached a critically low level. “The Russian defense industry cannot produce enough new missiles, and the ones they went to war with on February 24 are already running out,” HUR head Brigadier General Kyrylo Budanov said in a statement. “For many commodities, that number has already dropped below the critical level. I mean the 30 percent level,” he added. Budanov said that Russian shipments of Iskander cruise missiles, for example, fell to 13 percent of normal levels.
Military expert sees turning point in war
According to military expert Carlo Masala, the war between Russia and Ukraine has reached another turning point. “The war is turning right now,” said the politics professor at the Bundeswehr University in Munich in the “Stern” podcast “Ukraine – the situation”. Ukraine is coming under pressure in several places: “We’re fighting in the east, we’re fighting in the south, we have a second Belarusian front, so to speak, we’re shelling the big cities,” Masala explained. “The Ukrainians have been deprived of the initiative,” and their counter-offensive in the occupied territories has “basically come to a halt.”
However, according to Masala, this does not change the massive problems of the Russian armed forces. The fact that they now rely on simply constructed Iranian drones, while the Ukrainians have modern equipment, is a paradoxical situation. And also “another indication that the material is running out with the Russians”.
Kremlin troops report capture in Kharkiv
In the afternoon, the Russian army also launched attacks on Kharkiv to the north-east and Mykolaiv to the south. According to their own statements, they recaptured the village of Gorobivka near the Russian border in the Kharkiv region. It would be the first capture of a town since the Ukrainian army launched a successful counter-offensive in the area in September.
On September 21, Putin ordered the partial mobilization of hundreds of thousands of reservists to strengthen his army. The Kremlin has now said that the partial mobilization has not yet ended, but has already been completed in some regions of the country.
Fighter jet crash in Russia claims 15 victims
According to new information from the governor of the Russian Krasnodar region, 15 people were killed when a Russian military plane crashed in Yeysk on the Azov Sea on Monday. The machine had crashed into a residential complex, investigators assumed a “technical defect” in the machine, which was on a training flight near Ukraine.
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