RUSSIAN STRIKES HIT KYIV HOMES AND POWER PLANT, KILL AT LEAST TWO

Russian missile and drone strikes hit Kyiv overnight, killing at least two people and injuring about 20, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko and Ukraine's state emergency service said. President Volodymyr Zelensky said a Russian ballistic missile struck the CHP-4 heat and power plant, cutting electricity supplies in the capital. A strike on a nine-storey residential block in the Desnianskyi district killed two people and injured 21, while a separate strike in the Holosiivskyi district killed one person and injured another. Other accounts put Kyiv's toll at three dead and 22 injured, and a wider nationwide count at nine dead.

Russia's Defence Ministry said its forces carried out a "massive" strike against Ukrainian energy and communications infrastructure, according to the Russian news agency Interfax. It said the attack hit power and heating plants in Kyiv, a substation, facilities in the Kharkiv region and a data centre it said was used to gather intelligence on Russian forces. Ukraine's military said separate strikes on the Dnipropetrovsk region killed two people and wounded six. Officials said the overnight attacks left more than 600,000 people without electricity nationwide, with energy provider DTEK reporting emergency power cuts in parts of Kyiv.

The strikes came days after US President Donald Trump announced what was described as an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, intended to halt attacks on critical infrastructure. Zelensky said Ukraine's systems detected the missiles only as they neared Kyiv, with no advance warning from Western partners, which he called unjust. Ukrainian officials said the strikes may have involved missiles that are difficult to detect, or possible technical issues with warning systems. Emergency service psychologists assisted 110 people at the affected sites in Kyiv.