Washington / Kyiv (dpa) – The head of the US CIA foreign intelligence service, William Burns, According to the Washington Post, during of the recent Russian missile attack on Ukraine in Kyiv. There he met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj, the newspaper reported on Wednesday. Burns was inside the US embassy during Tuesday’s rocket fire and was not injured.
According to a Kiev count, Russia has fired more than 90 rockets and cruise missiles at Ukraine. According to the paper, Burns reaffirmed US support for Ukraine in Kyiv. There should be no connection between Burns’ stay in the Ukrainian capital and the Russian attack.
Burns had previously met his Russian counterpart Sergei Naryshkin in Turkey. According to US media, Burns warned Russia against using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. He is also said to have raised the case of US citizens being illegally detained in Russia. Ukraine had been notified of this trip in advance.
Ten million people are temporarily without electricity
After the massive Russian rocket attack on Ukraine’s energy system, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyj, around ten million people were temporarily without power. This especially affected the Kharkiv, Zhytomyr, Kyiv and Lviv regions, Zelenskyj said in his evening video address.
District heating has been turned off in Lviv and other cities. “There are problems with communications and the internet across the country.” The president then added that around eight million people have now had electricity again.
As a result of the attack on the power grid, the reactor units at two of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants were automatically shut down, Zelenskyy said, without giving further details.
He interpreted the heavy attack as Russia’s response to the fact that countries such as Indonesia, China and India had spoken out against war at the G20 summit. “Russia is telling the world that it wants to move on,” Zelenskyy said. The world must react to this, he demanded.
London: No flooding due to dam failure
Although Russia destroyed the Kakhovka dam in Ukraine, according to British estimates, there was no risk of catastrophic flooding. Three bridge spans across the dam were destroyed, rendering the crossing impassable, the Ministry of Defense in London said on Wednesday, citing intelligence. However, the weir under this section is still largely intact. “The current level of damage is unlikely to result in major flooding downstream,” he said.
Ukrainian troops have been hitting the bridge with precision strikes since August, successfully disrupting Russian supplies. On November 11, the Russian troops withdrew in controlled destruction, causing even greater damage. “This was probably done to prevent further Ukrainian advances,” he said in London.
The UK Ministry of Defense has been publishing daily information on the course of the war since the start of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in late February, citing intelligence. In doing so, the British government wants to counteract Russia’s portrayal and keep allies in line. Moscow accuses London of carrying out a targeted disinformation campaign.
