Ukraine war live updates: Russians inflict ‘massive attack’ on Ukraine’s energy network, leaving power plants damaged

Railway infrastructure in the southern city of Kherson came under fire Wednesday, the state-owned rail operator Ukrzaliznytsia said.

“Ukrzaliznytsia is under the enemy’s sights again! On the morning of May 8, a terrorist country attacked the civilian railway infrastructure in Kherson. As a result of enemy strikes, the tracks at the city station were damaged,” the railway network said on Telegram.

Railway officials limited the movement of a train on the Kyiv-Kherson route but said 99 passengers on the affected train were safe. The rest of Ukrzaliznytsia’s trains continue to run according to schedule.

Russian officials say their armed forces do not target civilian infrastructure.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russia used dozens of missiles and drones to attack Ukraine’s infrastructure overnight, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday morning.

“More than 50 rockets and more than 20 “shaheds” [drones] on infrastructure in the Lviv, Vinnytsia, Kyiv, Poltava, Kirovohrad, Zaporizhzia, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram.

Ukraine’s Air Force Commander Lieutenant General Mykola Oleschuk also posted on the social media platform that, overnight, Russian forces “launched a combined strike with missiles of various types and attack UAVs. In total, the enemy used 76 means of air attack – 55 missiles and 21 attack drones.”

“The whole world should clearly understand who is who,” Zelenskyy said.

“The whole world has no right to give Nazism another chance,” he said, noting that the latest attack took place on the international Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation commemorating those who died in World War II.

Ukraine and Russia routinely characterize each other as “Nazi” or “fascist” regimes, with Moscow using the accusation against Kyiv in large part to justify its unprovoked invasion in February 2022. Ukraine’s president is Jewish.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russian forces launched a “massive attack” on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure overnight, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday.

“The enemy does not abandon plans to deprive Ukrainians of light. Again a massive attack on our energy!” Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Facebook Wednesday.

Power plants and transmission facilities were attacked in a number of regions, he said, including the southern Zaporizhzhia region and Vinnytsia and Lviv in central and western Ukraine.

“The enemy wants to deprive us of the opportunity to produce and transmit electricity,” he said, calling on civilians to use power sparingly in order to prevent pressure on the energy system.

DTEK, the largest energy company in Ukraine, said on Telegram that Russia had attacked three DTEK thermal power plants, causing “another extremely difficult night for the Ukrainian energy industry” — a sector that has found itself frequently the target of Russian drone and missile attacks.

“The enemy fired at three of our TPPs. The equipment is seriously damaged,” the company said, noting that the latest attack was the fifth “massive shelling” of the company’s energy facilities in the last one and a half months.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, DTEK thermal power plants have been fired upon about 180 times. During this period, 51 workers were wounded and three power workers were killed in shelling at the stations, DTEK said. CNBC was unable to verify the claims.

— Holly Ellyatt

Ukraine’s military said Wednesday that the capital Kyiv was targeted by Russian missiles overnight.

“The Russians hit Kyiv with Kh-101/Kh-555/Kh-55 cruise missiles, all targets were destroyed by air defense forces, there were no casualties,” the military said on Telegram.

Ruslan Kravchenko, the head of Kyiv regional military administration, said on Telegram that Russian forces attacked the capital with one-way attack drones and cruise missiles. Air raid warnings lasted four hours, he said.

“No hits to residential or critical infrastructure objects were recorded,” he said, although falling debris (as a result of intercepted drones and missiles) injured several people and some residential buildings, he noted.

“Damage to power lines was recorded. One of the villages [in the Kyiv region] is partially without electricity. Energy workers are already working quickly to restore the light,” he said.

— Holly Ellyatt

Belarus is carrying out a “surprise inspection” of its non-strategic nuclear weapons, local state media agency Belta reported on Tuesday.

“The entire range of activities from planning, preparation and use of strikes with tactical nuclear weapons will be checked,” the Belarusian defense minister Viktor Khrenin said, according to a Google translation of Belta’s reporting. Khrenin said the order for the inspection was issued on Tuesday and was a “surprise.”

Last month, Russian news agency Ria Novosti reported that Belarus had taken steps to station “non-strategic nuclear weapons” across the country.

Non-strategic nuclear weapons, also known as tactical nuclear weapons, are designed to be used on battlefields in a military context.

— Sophie Kiderlin

Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU, said Tuesday that it had exposed a network of Russian security service (FSB) agents who were preparing the assassination of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“Counterintelligence were detained and SBU investigators foiled the plans of the FSB to eliminate the President of Ukraine and other representatives of the top military and political leadership of the state,” the SBU said on Telegram.

The network included two colonels of Ukraine’s department of state protection, the UDO — which is responsible for Vladimir Zelenskyy’s security — who “leaked” secret information to the Russian Federation, the SBU said.

“One of the tasks of the FSB intelligence network was to search for executors among the military close to the protection of the President, who could take the Head of State hostage and later kill him,” the SBU claimed.

It said the agents also planned to eliminate the Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Malyuk, the head of the Ukrainian military intelligence service (GUR) Kirill Budanov and other high-ranking officials.

“The enemy’s plan was as follows: first, the recruited agent had to observe the movement of the person under guard and pass information to the enemy. According to the coordinates of the house where the official was supposed to be, a rocket attack was planned. Then they were going to attack the people who remained at the affected area with a drone. After that, the Russians planned to target with another missile, including to destroy traces of the use of the drone,” the SBU claimed, without presenting evidence.

CNBC was unable to immediately verify the claims made in the SBU’s report and the FSB has not yet commented.

— Holly Ellyatt

Here’s a few pictures from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration ceremony in the Grand Kremlin Palace on Tuesday.

— Holly Ellyatt

Newly re-inaugurated Russian President Vladimir Putin has told officials that Russia would not shut off dialogue with the West but said Western allies had to “make their choice.”

Speaking in his inaugural address after being sworn in for his fifth term in office, which will keep him in power until 2030, Putin said Russia wants relations with other countries and said talks on “strategic stability” were possible, but on “equal terms,” he said, in comments reported and translated by Reuters.

Putin said Russia’s state system should also be resilient to threats and challenges.

— Holly Ellyatt

Vladimir Putin is about to be inaugurated for a fifth term in office that will run until 2030. The inauguration will be followed by the resignation of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s government.

The Cabinet’s resignation is not unusual as it’s mandated by the Russian Constitution, but it’ll be interesting to see which officials remain in post, and who’s promoted or demoted.

“This largely formal step will be used to reshuffle the cabinet, with PM Mishustin widely expected to continue in his role,” Andrius Tursa, Central and Eastern Europe advisor at risk consultancy Teneo, said in a note Tuesday.

“The new cabinet is expected to be approved by both chambers of parliament and president within around two weeks,” he said.

“One immediate priority for the Mishustin 2.0 cabinet will likely be tax changes corresponding to Putin’s calls for ‘a more equitable distribution of the tax burden towards those with higher personal and corporate incomes.’ Putin is expected to head to China on his first foreign trip later this month,” Tursa noted.

— Holly Ellyatt