russia ukraine war

 Russian Assault on Ukraine's Energy Infrastructure: A Dire Situation

Ukraine's president has warned the country is fast running out of air defenses and artillery to fend off Russian attacks. Vladimir Zelensky warned that if US Congress continues to hold up a multi-billion dollar military aid package, then Ukraine will lose its war against Russia. 

On Thursday, power plants were attacked in a Russian bombardment, with hundreds of thousands of people being left without power. Our Eastern Europe correspondent Sarah Reinford sent us this update: "I think what we're seeing here now is clearly a sustained and deliberate assault by Russia on Ukraine's energy system. 

It started actually back in March with two massive attacks on this country, with drones and missiles, which destroyed all the power stations essentially. So, it left this city without power for some time. They worked to restore it, but there are rolling blackouts here, a real limit on the amount of electricity available. Customers are urged to avoid using too much. 

There are also generators everywhere you go on the streets. And then on Thursday morning, in the early hours, we got this next huge attack, dozens of drones and missiles fired by Russia that overwhelmed Ukraine's air defenses. In Kyiv, a major power plant there has been completely destroyed. 

I spoke to the boss of the company that ran that plant, and he says that they can repair it if they get the spare parts from allies in the West. Then, in theory, they can rebuild that power station, get it up and running again. But he asked me what the point of that would be if they can't protect it, and that is the problem. 

If there are renewed Russian attacks, which looks like will happen, then the problem is air defenses in Ukraine. They are extremely stretched, extremely limited, and it is very difficult to protect these power plants. So, that's why we've heard again from President Zelensky a real plea to the West to help Ukraine with its air defenses, a sense of frustration, I think, about lots of promising promises being made but very limited aid coming through, specifically in terms of air defenses. 

And I think that's important because it is quite clear that Russia is continuing these attacks, and they're not only becoming more intense, these attacks, they're also more accurate. And that means for Ukraine, they're more devastating.

" Sarah Reinford, though, earlier I spoke to Yaroslav Trofimov who is a chief Foreign Affairs correspondent at the Wall Street Journal and author of "Our Enemies Will Vanish." I asked him what he thinks might happen:

 "Well, the Russians have been on the offensive already since the end of last year. They have taken the city of Bdiva, the first city they have been able to capture in nearly a year, and every day they're inching ahead, taking a village here, you know, a few another small village there. 

So far, they do get a great cost, and tens of thousands of Russian soldiers were killed, and aimed thousands of pieces of equipment were lost. So, so far, Ukraine is holding out, but the issue of air defenses obviously is a key issue also in the battlefield because Russia is using more and more of these glide bombs to devastating effect, and Ukraine just doesn't have enough air defense interceptors to protect its infrastructure back in Kyiv and other cities and the frontline units. And that is one area that is allowing the Russians to advance."

You would draw a line then between Ukraine's response or its performance on the battlefield and the funding and the weaponry is providing by the West?"

"Oh, very much so, very much so, and I think the US government draws it as well. You know, when FDF fell in February, the White House said this happened because the Republicans who control the House of Representative haven't allowed the funding to go through. So, Ukraine just ran out of ammunition.

 And it's true, you know, if Ukraine and Russia had roughly a parity in the number of shells that would fire a day in September, October last year, now the advantage that the Russians have is about, you know, five to one to 10 to 1. So Ukraine is outgunned, it's on the defensive, and now it's increasingly struggling with protecting its Skies from the overwhelming Russian air power."

"Do you think that Russia has almost an endless supply of munitions? That seems to be what you're saying.""It's not endless, but while Ukraine is not getting American help, Russia is getting ballistic missiles from North Korea. It's getting a very large supply of these long-range Shah drones from Iran. So its allies are helping it. 

And obviously, you know, Ukraine would have a little bit easier in the coming month once the F-16 fighter jets come online because they can also be used for air defense. 

But you have this basic asymmetry in the war because Russia can strike and does strike anywhere in Ukraine, and Ukraine is not allowed by the US or its Western allies to use any of its Western supplied weapons to strike any targets in Russia.

 It cannot use these weapons to strike Russian airfields, Russian oil installations, Russian refineries. And when it does strike these targets with its own domestically produced drones, it gets criticized by the US government."