Nearly a third of Ukrainian power stations destroyed in the past week – Zelensky

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russian attacks have destroyed nearly a third of his country's power stations in the past week.

It comes as airstrikes cut power and water supplies to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians as part of what President Zelensky called an expanding Russian campaign to drive the nation into the cold and dark and make peace talks impossible.

"No space left for negotiations with Putin's regime," he tweeted.

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Depriving people of water, electricity and heat as winter begins to bite, and the broadening use of so-called suicide drones, which nosedive into targets, have opened a new phase in Russian President Vladimir Putin's war.

The bombardments appear aimed at wearing down the notable resilience Ukrainians have shown in the nearly eight months since Moscow invaded.

Even far from frontlines, basic utilities are no longer certainties, with daily strikes reaching far into the country and damaging key facilities, sometimes faster than they can be repaired.

Ukraine says Russia is getting thousands of drones from Iran. The Iranian-made Shahed drones, which hit targets in Kyiv, have also been widely used elsewhere in recent weeks.

In the past week alone, more than 100 self-destructing Iranian-made drones have slammed into power plants, sewage treatment plants, residential buildings, bridges and other targets in urban areas, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said.

A western official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence, said Russia is pursuing a strategy of "attempting to destroy Ukraine's electricity network" with long-range strikes which are causing civilian casualties rather than degrading its military.

The official said the Iranian drones "are playing an increasingly significant role, although we can see that Ukraine is effectively neutralising many of them before they hit their targets".

In a televised address on Monday night, Mr Zelensky said Russia is using the drones because it is losing ground in the war.

"Russia doesn't have any chance on the battlefield and it tries to compensate for its military defeats with terror," he said. "Why this terror? To put pressure on us, on Europe, on the entire world."