Kyiv power plant destroyed as UK ‘Dragonfire’ laser could take on Putin’s drones

A major power plant near Kyiv has been completely destroyed by Russian strikes in a “terrifying” attack, an energy company said.

Centrenergo chairman Andriy Hota said Trypillya power plant was hit by multiple drones – as part of an attack which saw 80 missiles and drones hit various sites across Ukraine.

Mr Hota said Thursday morning’s strikes destroyed “the transformer, the turbines, the generators. They destroyed 100 per cent”.

The system, which the Ministry of Defence holds is world-leading, is due to be operational in three years time. But defence secretary Grant Shapps holds that one could not wait to get a system absolutely perfect in such dangerous times, and getting them ready for combat in the fastest time possible is the priority.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said Russian government-backed hackers have used their access to Microsoft’s email system to steal correspondence between officials and the tech giant, an emergency directive by the U.S. watchdog released on Thursday showed.

In the directive dated April 2, the agency warned that hackers were exploiting authentication details shared by email to try to break into Microsoft’s customer systems, including those of an unspecified number of government agencies.

The warning that government agencies are being targeted using stolen Microsoft emails follows the company’s announcement in March that it was still wrestling with the intruders, which it nicknames “Midnight Blizzard.”

That disclosure, which set alarm bells ringing across the cybersecurity industry, was followed just last week by a report from the U.S. Cyber Safety Review Board which said that a separate hack – blamed on China – had been preventable, faulting the company for cybersecurity lapses and a deliberate lack of transparency.

CISA declined to name agencies that might have been affected.

The FBI is concerned about the possibility of an organised attack in the United States similar to the one that killed scores of people at a Russian concert hall last month, the bureau’s director plans to tell a House of Representatives panel on Thursday.

“Looking back over my career in law enforcement, I’d be hard-pressed to think of a time where so many threats to our public safety and national security were so elevated all at once,” Christopher Wray is set to tell lawmakers at budget hearing on Thursday.

“But that is the case as I sit here today.”

The March 22 attack on a concert hall in a Moscow suburb killed at least 144 people, the deadliest in Russia in 20 years. A branch of the Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility, but Russian President Vladimir Putin, without citing evidence, has sought to blame Ukraine.

The road is scarred by potholes and craters from shells, rockets and bombs – with mud everywhere, churned up by heavy military vehicles.

This is agricultural country. In some fields Ukrainian soldiers are building bunkers and defences of razor wire and concrete “dragon’s teeth” – to ensnare tanks. In others, tractors drive on freshly-ploughed soil for planting with wheat, sunflowers, rape seed and other crops.

Near the community of Krasnopillya, about 40km (25 miles) from Sumy, a soldier said a glide bomb dropped by a Russian plane had killed a civilian a few days earlier. He advised: “Don’t listen to music in your car. Pay attention to any sounds because there’s everything flying around in the air here – Russian drones, planes, artillery. Yesterday a [glide] bomb landed close by and left a crater two metres deep.”

The bishop for Ukraine in London has urged the UK and the US to “honour their pledges” and not forget that Ukraine is fighting Russia to save the “rule of law and democracy”.

Two years ago, Russia launched a devastating full-scale invasion of Ukraine, capturing nearly a quarter of the country and displacing more than 10 million people. There are now at least six million Ukrainian refugees in Europe, including around 250,000 in the UK.

“This is not just a battle for Ukraine,” the Catholic bishop told The Independent. “It is the battle for rule of law, democracy and freedoms that we have all taken advantage of. That we stand to lose.

Ukraine’s parliament has passed a controversial mobilisation bill as it seeks more troops to fight against Vladimir Putin’s invading forces – after a general said that Russian soldiers outnumbered Kyiv’s by up to ten times on the battlefield in the east.

The legislation, which must be signed by president Volodymyr Zelensky before it becomes law, is seen as crucial for Ukraine to address what military analysts say are major manpower problems.

Drone attacks on the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine must stop as they could pose “a new and gravely dangerous” stage in the war, the chief of the UN nuclear watchdog said.

Drones attacked Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant, on Sunday, in the worst such incident since November 2022. Nuclear safety was not compromised, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said.

“The most recent attacks… have shifted us into an acutely consequential juncture in this war,” IAEA director general Rafael Grossi told his agency’s 35-nation board of governors.

He called on the board to “unanimously to support the role of the IAEA in monitoring” principles aimed at preventing an accident at the plant, including that it not be attacked.

Since no draft resolutions have been submitted to the Board meeting, it is likely to boil down to an exchange of statements by the countries convening behind closed doors in Vienna.

“We are meeting today, and I will meet with the UN Security Council next week, because it is of paramount importance to ensure these reckless attacks do not mark the beginning of a new and gravely dangerous front of the war,” Mr Grossi said, adding: “Strikes must cease.”

Moscow and Kyiv have repeatedly accused one another of targeting the plant since Russia seized it weeks after it invaded Ukraine. Both countries requested an emergency meeting of the IAEA’s Board soon after Sunday’s attack.

Vladimir Putin mocked a scheduled round of Ukraine peace talks in Switzerland, warning that Moscow will not accept any enforced plans that ignore its interests. Switzerland’s government is hosting a high-level international conference in June to help chart a path toward peace in Ukraine after more than two years of fighting, and expressed hope that Russia might join in the peace process someday. Mr Putin charged that Russia hadn’t been invited to join June’s talks, while pointing at Swiss recognition that a peace process can’t happen without Russia. “They aren’t inviting us there,” Mr Putin said. “Moreover, they think there is nothing for us to do there, but at the same time they say that’s it’s impossible to decide anything without us. It would have been funny if it weren’t so sad.” Russia has dismissed Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s peace formula requiring Moscow to pull back its troops, pay compensation to Ukraine and face an international tribunal for its action. Speaking during Thursday’s meeting with Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko in Moscow, Mr Putin said that Russia is open for negotiations, but will never accept “any schemes that have nothing to do with reality.”

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that any negotiations on Ukraine without Russia were meaningless.

“We have repeatedly said that negotiations without Russia were meaningless… President Putin has repeatedly emphasized that we remain open to the negotiation process,” Peskov said.

The Swiss government will host a two-day high-level conference in June aimed at achieving peace in Ukraine, it said on Wednesday, although Russia has made clear it will not take part in the initiative.