Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian strikes targeted energy facilities in multiple regions, leaving thousands of households without electricity, as Ukrainian and Russian officials reported civilian deaths following drone attacks on October 18.
"Russia is not taking steps toward peace," Zelenskyy wrote on social media, adding that the Russian military had carried out 76 attacks on Ukraine's energy and oil and gas sectors in the week since US President Donald Trump unilaterally announced an energy cease-fire on social media.
Trump, who made ending Russia's war against Ukraine a priority when he began his current term, said on October 11 that he had asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to observe a weeklong pause in attacks on energy infrastructure amid cold weather in Ukraine.
Trump's announcement came after he and Putin had earlier agreed to a deal that would send Russian diesel to world markets. The move was sharply criticized by Kyiv, its European allies, and supporters of Ukraine in the United States, who said it could funnel more funds into Moscow's war effort.
During the week, however, Putin, who Russian media said was visiting a command post, ordered the Russian military to continue its "massive and coordinated" strikes against targets in Ukraine.
"Over the past week, Russia launched nearly 2,700 attack drones, 1,700 guided aerial bombs, and 66 missiles at Ukraine, most of them ballistic missiles," Zelenskyy wrote on social media on October 18.
Accusing Moscow of seeking to plunge Ukraine into a nationwide blackout, Zelenskyy said that just overnight power stations were targeted in the Vinnytsya, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskiy, and Odesa regions. Local authorities reported power outages following the strikes.
Moscow has previously sought to pressure Kyiv into accepting its hard-line demands by attacking the country's energy infrastructure and leaving thousands without heat or electricity amid freezing temperatures.
On October 18, Russian attacks killed at least two people and injured several others across the country, Ukrainian officials said.
In the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhya, a 27-year-old woman was killed and two people were injured, including a 6-year-old girl, according to the regional military administration. The attacks damaged two apartment buildings, 18 cars, and an educational institution.
In the central city of Poltava, a Russian drone attack killed one woman and injured four other people, the head of the city's military administration, Vitaliy Dyakivnych, said on Telegram. Nine residential buildings were damaged, some by falling drone debris.
Ukraine's Air Force said Russia had launched 180 combat drones during the overnight attacks, of which 152 were intercepted. Impacts were recorded at 20 locations, it said.
Russia Reports Casualties, Infrastructure Damage
With a fifth wartime winter approaching, Russian strikes on Ukraine have become a daily occurrence.
Since this year, however, Kyiv has increasingly responded to Russian attacks with a campaign of long-range strikes targeting military and energy sites inside Russia and middle-range strikes targeting its key logistics in Ukraine's occupied eastern and southern regions.
Trump has repeatedly called on Ukraine to halt its strikes on Russian refineries, blaming those attacks -- and not the decreased energy flows from the Middle East resulting from the US-Israeli war with Iran -- for high diesel fuel prices.
Following Trump's latest such call last week, Zelenskyy appeared to support halting the strikes but said he expected Moscow to do the same. However, as Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy sites continued, the Ukrainian president said Kyiv was "done" with unilaterally pausing its own.
On October 18, the governor of St. Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city, Aleksandr Beglov, reported that fires broke out at the city's oil terminal, an oil depot, and industrial warehouses following a Ukrainian drone attack. He said one person was killed and five others were injured.
Separately, Russian e-commerce company Ozon said a drone struck one of its logistics facilities in St. Petersburg, causing a fire. Employees were evacuated, and no one was injured at the facility, the company said.
Ukraine has accused some of Russia's largest online shopping platforms of distributing military supplies, including dual-use goods such as body armor and surveillance technology.
As Russia has recently stepped up attacks on Ukrainian data centers and telecommunications infrastructure, causing internet outages in some regions of the country, Kyiv has also vowed to mirror Moscow's tactics.
On October 18, the VK Internet company said its data center in the Leningrad region had been targeted by drones, but its services remained available to users as normal.
Separately, a drone struck a cable-stayed bridge forming part of St. Petersburg's Western High-Speed Diameter highway. The extent of the damage was not immediately clear.
The attacks also caused power disruptions in parts of the region. Two transformer substations in Yanino were reportedly disconnected, while operations at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Airport were disrupted.
Russia's Defense Ministry said air defense units had downed 1,015 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions overnight. The figure could not be independently verified.
Drone attacks also disrupted air travel across Russia. More than 350 flights were delayed or canceled at Moscow's four airports overnight on October 17, as authorities imposed restrictions amid reported Ukrainian drone attacks on the Moscow region.
The figures were based on airport departure and arrival boards reviewed by the independent Russian outlet Meduza.
Sheremetyevo was the worst affected, with 143 flights canceled and 53 delayed. Vnukovo recorded 55 cancellations and 113 delays, while Domodedovo reported 59 delayed flights. Some flights bound for Moscow were diverted to other cities, including St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Russian air defenses had destroyed 75 drones heading toward the capital. Russia's Defense Ministry said more than 600 drones had been destroyed or intercepted across the country overnight.
Airports in Penza, Saratov, and Sochi also suspended operations.
Kyiv Says Starshield Connections Still Limited
The latest barrage on Ukraine came as disruptions to the Starshield satellite system, the military-grade version of the Starlink service run by Elon Musk's SpaceX, left Ukraine particularly vulnerable earlier in the week.
On October 18, Zelenskyy said the speed of Starshield connections across Ukrainian territory remained significantly limited. "Of course technically it's not a mistake. It's limited because it's a decision. Who made this decision? I don't know," he said in an interview with NBC News.
According to the Ukrainian officials the move has been causing instability in battlefield communications, medium-range strikes, and the operation of interceptor drones.
"The shortage of air defense systems, combined with the lack of confirmation that Starshield's full operational capabilities have been restored, creates additional challenges for Ukraine in protecting critical infrastructure against Russian aerial attacks," Denys Sienik, Ukraine's charge d'affaires to the United States, told RFE/RL.
Alongside the diesel deal with Russia and delays in already scarce ballistic missile interceptors, Starlink disruptions in Ukraine appeared to be Washington's latest move to pressure Kyiv into an unfavorable deal with Russia, Zelenskyy told Bloomberg on October 18.
"I believe steps have been taken to convince Ukraine to capitulate," he said. "I am not saying that this is the goal our partners are pursuing. I don't want to think that our American partners believe the war" against Russia "could be ended sooner at Ukraine’s expense. But that’s how it looks."
Earlier in the day, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio rejected claims that the United States had deliberately restricted Ukraine's access to Starlink, the satellite Internet service operated by Elon Musk's SpaceX.
"No one at the White House ordered anyone to slow down Internet or slow down speed so that certain drones couldn’t use it," he told reporters on October 17 as he prepared to depart for Central Asia, calling reports of US involvement "categorically false."
Rubio said his understanding was that Starlink's performance had returned to its previous level. He also questioned the Ukrainian president's account of the incident, saying he was "not sure Zelenskyy knows what he's talking about."
Rubio distinguished Starlink from Starshield, a separate defense-oriented satellite system used by the US military. Although, Starshield terminals are provided to Ukraine under a contract from the US Defense Department, Rubio said the country does not currently have access to it.
Kyiv had earlier asked for permission to use the system over Russian territory to conduct deep strikes against military targets. Rubio said the question of how the system might be used remains under discussion.
"We openly asked SpaceX and President Trump to open Starlink on the territory of Russia to give us a chance to destroy ballistic launches of Russia," Zelenskyy told NBC News.
While Rubio's and Zelenskyy's latest comments highlighted the growing tensions between Washington and Kyiv over the administration's approach to Russia, the Ukrainian president said he had held talks with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
Zelenskyy added that Ukraine and the United States were "preparing the next steps in diplomacy" and that his country remained "ready to work constructively, honestly, and toward a real result."
