Russian Strikes Damage 30 Ukrainian Energy Sites and Cut Power to 600,000 Days After Trump's Announced 'Energy Ceasefire'

Three days after Trump announced an "energy ceasefire" on Truth Social, a large Russian missile and drone attack overnight into Wednesday, Oct. 14, damaged 30 Ukrainian energy facilities and left at least 600,000 people without power. Temperatures in Kyiv have fallen below 10°C.

Zelensky said 26 facilities in the power system and four in the oil and gas sector were damaged. The attack focused on Kyiv and Kharkiv.

What Russia fired, and what Ukraine stopped

Ukraine's air force says Russia launched 39 ballistic and cruise missiles and 128 drones. Ukrainian defenses shot down four of the missiles and 115 of the drones.

Four of 39 missiles is a poor intercept rate. Ballistic missiles are the problem. Ukraine relies on U.S. satellite systems to track them and sound alerts, and for the second night running ballistic missiles reached Kyiv before sirens went off. Zelensky says Ukraine received no warning from partners.

Zelensky has said the U.S. threatened to restrict intelligence sharing if he did not sign on to Trump's energy ceasefire. Trump denied on Tuesday that Washington is withholding intelligence.

Casualties

In Kyiv, three people were killed and 22 injured, according to emergency officials. A strike on a nine-storey residential block in the Desnianskyi district killed two and injured 21, including a child. Sixteen of the injured were hospitalized, four in serious condition. Firefighters fought a blaze covering 400 square metres.

Another person was killed and one injured in the Holosiivskyi district, where a non-residential building was hit.

Elsewhere, the Ukrainian military reported two people killed and six wounded in the Dnipropetrovsk region and one killed in Zaporizhzhia. That brings the reported toll to at least six across the country, according to Al Jazeera's tally of those reports.

Zelensky confirmed a ballistic missile hit Kyiv's CHP-4 heat and power plant. DTEK, Ukraine's largest private energy provider, reported emergency power cuts in several districts of the capital.

Moscow's account

Russia's Defense Ministry called the strike "massive" and said it targeted communications and energy facilities used by Ukraine's military. It listed two power and heating plants in Kyiv, two more in the surrounding region, an electricity substation, and a heating and power plant in Kharkiv.

The ministry also said it hit a thermal power facility supplying Ukrainian forces in southeastern Kharkiv region, and a Kyiv data center it said was used to gather intelligence on Russia's military. Ukraine has not accepted that description of any of these sites.

Zelensky called the attack a deliberate hit on the very infrastructure Trump's announcement covered. "Russia has never before shown such ostentatious disrespect toward the United States," he wrote on X. "Russia does not consider the American President's statements strong."

A ceasefire nobody has signed

Trump announced Sunday, Oct. 11, that both sides had agreed to an immediate halt to strikes on energy facilities, adding "Do not break it!" Neither government confirmed it at the time.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday he could only point to Zelensky's reaction, which was that Zelensky had not heard of such an agreement. Russian officials have said talks are ongoing but have not said an agreement exists. Ukraine has since said it is ready to honor a ceasefire.

A White House official told Axios on Sunday that the proposal initially focused on oil refineries, with power plants and grids possibly following, and acknowledged Russia had not agreed.

Zelensky told Fox News on Monday that Kyiv had refrained from striking Russian energy facilities since the announcement, and called the deal a "good first step." He argued Moscow answered it by hitting Ukrainian gas infrastructure.

Trump lifted sanctions on Russian diesel last week to ease fuel prices at home. Washington and Kyiv are also at odds over Ukraine's strikes on Russia's refining network.

Starlink limits on the front

Serhiy Beskrestnov, Zelensky's adviser on defense technology, said SpaceX "implemented overnight a speed limit on Starlink terminals" without telling Ukrainian forces. He said it caused "the disruption of a number of missions."

He said the limit applies to the military StarShield service package and is set at 100 mph, about 160 km/h. That affects terminals on moving vehicles and drones.

"It is clear that this action cannot be a coincidence and is related to the current political situation," Beskrestnov wrote on Telegram. In a separate post he said SpaceX likely acted at the request of the Trump administration. That is his claim. No evidence of a request has been presented.

A Ukrainian Defense Ministry source said officials detected restrictions on speeds above 160 km/h, are still verifying the exact threshold, and are investigating the "root cause." The source said logistics, unmanned systems and middle-strike missions are affected.

SpaceX has not commented. Starlink is a core tool for Ukrainian drone operations, and Elon Musk has previously made decisions about who gets access.

What comes next

Zelensky is scheduled to meet UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham at Downing Street today to discuss speeding up air defense deliveries. The unanswered questions are whether SpaceX will explain the Starlink limit, and whether Moscow will state a position on Trump's energy ceasefire.