barrage of drones and missiles<\/a> in overnight attacks on Ukraine, targeting substations that supply two nuclear power plants and killing seven people, Ukrainian officials told Reuters news agency.<\/p>\nRussia\u2019s Defence Ministry confirmed on Saturday that it launched \u201ca massive strike with high-precision long-range air, ground and sea-based weapons\u201d on weapons production plants and gas and energy facilities in response to Kyiv\u2019s earlier strikes on Russia.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, the northeastern region of Kharkiv was still struggling to recover from Russia\u2019s attacks, which left about 100,000 people without power.<\/p>\n
State-owned energy company Tsentrenergo said the attacks were the largest on its facilities since the start of the war in February 2022, and it halted operations at plants in the Kyiv and Kharkiv regions.<\/p>\n
Moscow launched 69 drones at energy facilities across Ukraine overnight into Sunday, of which 34 were shot down, according to the Ukrainian air force.<\/p>\n
FM Lavrov ready to meet Rubio<\/p>\n
Russia and Ukraine have traded almost daily assaults on each other\u2019s energy infrastructure as United States-led diplomatic efforts to stop the nearly four-year war appear to be leading nowhere fast.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian long-range drone strikes\u00a0on Russian refineries have aimed to deprive Moscow of the\u00a0oil export revenue\u00a0it needs to pursue the war.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Kyiv and its Western allies say Russia is trying to cripple the Ukrainian power grid and deny civilians access to heat, lights, and running water for a fourth consecutive winter in what amounts to a weaponisation of the extreme cold.<\/p>\n
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti on Sunday that he\u2019s ready to meet US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to discuss the war on Ukraine and mend bilateral ties.<\/p>\n
Lavrov repeated that peace can\u2019t be achieved without \u201ctaking Russian interests into account\u201d \u2013 a phrase Moscow has used to signal it is standing firm in its maximalist demands for Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded Kyiv withdraw troops from the entirety of the four regions Moscow claims as part of Russia: Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine \u2013 which make up the Donbas \u2013 plus Kherson and Zaporizhia in the south.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said some Russian-occupied territories might be acknowledged as temporarily seized, but has ruled out any official recognition, saying he does not have a mandate to give away territory.<\/p>\n
Lavrov\u2019s move comes weeks after efforts to organise a summit between Putin and US President Donald Trump were abruptly cancelled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As tit-for-tat attacks on energy infrastructure continue, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov says he\u2019s ready to meet US Secretary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[299,12,332,7661,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-560169","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-europe","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-russia","11":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","12":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115521953703706983","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}