At least 600,000 people across Ukraine are without electricity after overnight Russian missile and drone strikes, President Volodymyr Zelensky said. The attack came days after US President Donald Trump announced an "energy ceasefire" that Moscow plainly isn't observing. For Europe, which has carried much of the weight of keeping Ukraine afloat, the episode lands as a sharp reminder: a security guarantee resting on a single transatlantic announcement can evaporate in one night.
Ukraine's air force said Russia launched 39 ballistic and cruise missiles and 128 drones overnight. Ukrainian forces shot down four missiles and 115 drones. Zelensky said the strikes hit 26 electricity facilities and four oil and gas installations across Kyiv, the surrounding region and Kharkiv. Ukraine's state emergencies service reported at least three people killed and 21 injured in Kyiv. Russia's defence ministry called its strikes "massive" and said they targeted communications and energy facilities used by Ukraine's military.
The Warning Gap
Zelensky singled out something more troubling than the strikes themselves. A Russian ballistic missile hit Kyiv's CHP-4 power plant on Tuesday evening, he said, and Western allies gave no advance warning. "A Russian ballistic missile attack on Kyiv. Once again, no early warning from our partners," he wrote on Facebook. Ukraine's systems detected the missiles only as they neared the city, he said, marking a second consecutive night without such a warning. "This is absolutely unjust," he added.
The point matters because Ukraine depends heavily on Western intelligence, especially from the US, to detect incoming attacks and identify its own targets. Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least two people died in Tuesday evening's attack, which also struck a residential building in the Desnianskyi district and wounded around 20. Ukrainian officials offered two explanations for explosions that came before the air raid sirens: hard-to-detect Russian missiles or possible technical issues.
A Ceasefire on Paper
Trump announced the "energy ceasefire" on Sunday on Truth Social: "Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!" Zelensky has said Ukraine is ready to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries if Moscow does the same. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took a different line, saying Ukraine doesn't deserve the "respite" a truce would bring and that Europe would use it to "pump [Ukraine] with new weapons." Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly lashed out at Zelensky over strikes on Russian refineries and on Saturday suggested it was "time for Ukraine to get a new president."
Zelensky appealed directly to Washington. "Russia has never before shown such ostentatious disrespect toward the United States," he wrote on X, asking for tougher sanctions and additional Patriot interceptors.
Starlink and the Leverage Problem
A second development compounds the unease. Ukrainian forces reported on Wednesday that SpaceX introduced restrictions on military use of Starlink, apparently affecting its military-grade StarShield version. Connectivity reportedly cuts out when terminals move faster than roughly 160 kilometres per hour. Serhiy Beskrestnov, an adviser to Zelensky on military technology, said the limit arrived overnight without notice. "Our defence forces did not receive a warning about this limitation and this led to the disruption of several missions," he wrote on Telegram.
The reason remains unclear. Volunteer Serhiy Sternenko suggested the Trump administration may have requested the change, but there's no independent evidence the White House ordered it, and nobody has established a connection with the diplomatic dispute. Media reports say Washington warned intelligence cooperation could be curtailed unless Ukraine halts refinery strikes; Washington denies suspending intelligence-sharing, and Ukrainian officials say cooperation continues. Elon Musk, SpaceX's owner, wrote on Saturday that "Zelenskyy has gone too far."
Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, and the war is now in its fifth year. Moscow controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory.
Why This Matters:
The facts here cut in two directions for European capitals. Ukraine's grid is being targeted at scale, and Europe is the partner most likely to be asked to help rebuild and defend it. But Kyiv's ability to see incoming missiles and keep drones connected appears to hinge on American intelligence and a private American satellite network, neither of which Europe controls. Whatever explains the missed warnings and the Starlink limit, the dependency itself is the story. From a taxpayer's perspective, the argument for European defence investment and independent intelligence and communications capacity isn't abstract: it determines whether money already committed to Ukraine's defence delivers results when a partner's attention shifts.