KYIV: Russia struck energy and railway infrastructure in eight regions of Ukraine overnight, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday, in attacks he said were made possible partly due to restrictions on Ukraine’s use of SpaceX’s Starshield service.
“The Russians are targeting substations with ‘shaheds,’” Zelensky said on X, referring to the drones Russia commonly launches across Ukraine. “And many of these strikes are getting through because restrictions on the speed of Starshield terminals along the front line and in the temporarily occupied territories are still there.”
Speaking later in his nightly video address, Zelensky said Russian forces had lately been singling out specific regions and then repeatedly striking them over several days. Zelensky said the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions had been particularly badly hit, with repair work proceeding on the grid and on specific substations.
“There have been many outages, and restoration is proceeding,” Zelensky said. “Power has been restored to some extent, but there is still a lot of work ahead.”
Darker days aheadZelensky warned that limitations on the system, operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, could weaken defenses around Ukraine’s energy infrastructure ahead of the winter months, when Moscow has repeatedly targeted the power grid.
Ukraine’s interceptor drones continue to lose contact with their operators when flying faster than 161 kph (100 mph) along the front line and…
