Ukraine was forced to disconnect several nuclear power units from the grid on Monday after Russia’s widespread drone and missile attacks on the country.

Kyiv’s mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency has said the attack was intended to paralyse the operation of the power generation facilities of Ukraine.

It added that the attacks posed a significant risk to the stable operation of nuclear facilities.

As a result of the attack, three out of four power units of the Rivne nuclear power plant were disconnected from the grid, it said.

Another nuclear power plant, the South Ukrainian, was also forced to decrease its output “due to fluctuations in the national power grid”.

A fighter jet from Belarus attempted to shoot down a Russian drone that flew into the country’s airspace this morning, a monitoring group has said.

The Belarusian Hajun group said this is “probably the first recorded case of a Belarusian Air Force fighter attempting to destroy a military target in the sky”.

The group claims a Russian drone entered Belarus’ airspace at around 3.30am local time (1.30am UK time), with two explosions heard in the country’s Yelsk district around 30 minutes later.

The drone was said to be a Shahed, also known as a “kamikaze drone”.

Sky News has not independently verified these claims.

For context: Belarus and Russia share a land border and the two are considered close allies.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Belarus allowed Moscow to stage part of the invasion from its territory.

In the wake of Ukraine’s advances into the Russian region of Kursk this month, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko he had stationed nearly a third of the country’s armed forces along its Ukrainian border.

Ukraine’s allies must give Kyiv permission to use weapons to hit military targets in Russia “sooner rather than later”, says one of the country’s MPs.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly asked Western leaders to let Ukraine use long-range weapons on Russian territory.

During his nightly address yesterday, the president said such restrictions being lifted would “help us to end the war as soon as possible in a fair way for Ukraine and the world as a whole”.

This week, Sir Keir Starmer said there had been “no new decisions” on the matter, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz saying the same yesterday in Berlin.

Speaking on Sky News this morning, Ukrainian MP Kira Rudik said the situation across the country remains difficult and urged Kyiv’s allies to speed up their decision-making process.

She said: “It seems for us that the only way to defend our people and defend our territories is to be able to hit Russian missiles and Russian planes at the start of their launches, not when they are approaching our energy infrastructure or our homes.

“And this is why we need the ability to use long-range weapons to destroy Russia’s ability to attack us.

“It’s a pure act of defence. And we hope that, sooner rather than later, our allies will understand that.”

Russia is continuing its advances in the Donbas region as it seeks to capture the key city of Pokrovsk.

Civilians are being evacuated from the city, with Volodymyr Zelenskyy warning the situation is “difficult”.

The map below shows Russia’s gains on Ukrainian territory.

On the eastern front, Ukraine’s invasion of Russia’s Kursk region is ongoing.

There have been Russian reports this week that Ukraine has attempted to break into the neighbouring Belgorod region, with Moscow’s defence ministry saying the situation “remains difficult but under control”.

The map below shows Ukraine’s gains on Russian territory since its invasion of the border region began on 6 August.

 A lioness with shell shock rescued from Ukraine has taken her first steps outside at a sanctuary in Kent.

Yuna has psychological issues and coordination problems after debris landed near her enclosure in January, according to the Big Cat Sanctuary.

The three-year-old arrived at the sanctuary on 17 August but stayed inside her enclosure for a week before finally venturing outside.

She’s now beginning to get used to her new life in the UK, feeling grass underneath her paws for the first time after spending much of her life confined to a small space on a concrete floor.

The sanctuary said before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she had been kept at a private home and was found malnourished and with severe concussion.

Read more here…

Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is taking the country “closer and closer” to a total blackout, says one of its MPs.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia has caused £13.5bn of damage to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, the Kyiv School of Economics Institute estimates.

Speaking on Sky News, Kira Rudik, who lives in Kyiv, says the city’s homes do not have electricity for the “majority of the day”.

“Even right now, I’m speaking to you all being on a diesel generator,” she said.

“It’s terrifying that still, by this point, we are unable to protect us from those vicious attacks in full. And Russia keeps bringing us closer and closer to that total blackout.

“How we are going to survive the winter is unclear right now, because the weather outside is still good. But once it gets colder and people start to consume more energy, we will not be able to handle it.”

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in June that Russia had destroyed 80% of Ukraine’s thermal energy generation and a third of its hydro generation.

But this week, he declined to elaborate on what further damage Monday’s strikes had caused.

“I don’t really like energy PR,” he said. “It’s not very helpful when the enemy knows what damage they have done.

“Let the information about the condition of our energy facilities and what we are currently doing there be kept quiet.”

The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, says Warsaw’s allies have recommended it shows restraint over shooting down unidentified targets in its airspace.

Poland said a drone had likely entered its airspace early on Monday morning during a Russian bombardment of Ukraine, with the object said to have flown 15 miles (25km) into Polish territory, after which it disappeared from radar.

Mr Tusk was asked yesterday about the incident but said it was difficult to identify objects in real time.

“The problem with shooting down is often of a different nature,” he explained.

“It is often a fraction of a second, which makes it impossible to check whether it is not a civilian object, whether it is not a stray plane.”

He added that Poland’s allies had recommended some restraint over the matter and said he appreciated his country’s military for their “reasonable, balanced position”.

“They are not interested in opening fire every time something moves in the sky,” he said.

War crimes prosecutors have inspected the sites of yesterday’s Russian strikes on the eastern town of Kupyansk.

In his nightly address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a Russian glide bomb had hit the town and resulted in deaths.

“There was a strike – right in the city centre, people were under the rubble. Unfortunately, there are fatalities.”

The regional prosecutor’s office said the strike had injured 14 people and damaged the city hall.

A hotel, residential buildings, outbuildings, cars, shops, administrative buildings, and other civilian infrastructure were damaged, it added.

Kupyansk is part of the Kharkiv region of Ukraine and sits 22 miles (35km) from the Russian border.

Ukrainian shelling in Russia’s Belgorod region has killed one person and injured others, according to officials.

Posting on his Telegram channel, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov reported the attacks had taken place in the town of Shebekino.

There, he said, one man died and two other people had to be taken to hospital with shrapnel wounds.

He also reported two buildings were damaged and a car caught fire.

For context: The Belgorod region borders Ukraine and the Kursk region of Russia, which Ukraine invaded on 6 August.

There have been Russian reports this week that Ukraine has attempted to break into Belgorod, with Moscow’s defence ministry saying the situation “remains difficult but under control”.

Russia’s huge air attacks across Ukraine this week have cost Moscow more than £1bn, the UK representative to the UN has said.

Moscow launched one of its biggest air attacks of the war so far on Monday, with drones and missiles fired into more than half of Ukrainian regions.

At least seven people were killed and power facilities were damaged, Kyiv has said.

Speaking at the UN Security Council meeting, James Kariuki said the attacks represent “continued evidence” that Russia is intentionally targeting civilian energy infrastructure.

He also said the “cowardly” attacks cost the Kremlin almost £1.14bn, citing figures come from a report by Forbes Ukraine and Ekonmichna Pravda.

“The consequence of Putin’s miscalculation for the Russian people is increasingly evident,” added Mr Kariuki.