Live updates | Russia-Ukraine War

The Kremlin is refusing to confirm that the Russian military is using Iranian drones in its attacks on Ukraine.

Asked Tuesday whether Russia is using them to strike Ukrainian targets, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded: “We don't have such information.” Speaking in a conference call with reporters, he emphasised that “Russian equipment with Russian names is being used.” The Iranian Shahed drones reportedly have been rebranded Geran-2 by Russia and used extensively to carry out strikes across Ukraine.

They are often called suicide drones because they slam into targets and explode. Analysts say Moscow's plan is to terrorise Ukraine's civilian population with the drones.

___ KEY DEVELOPMENTS: — Winter is coming: Ukrainians dig in for brutal season — EXPLAINER: Killer drones vie for supremacy over Ukraine — Ukrainian resilience persists amid Russian barrages — NATO begins nuclear exercises amid Russia's war — EU approves Ukraine training mission ___ OTHER DEVELOPMENTS: Kyiv: Officials say two people have been killed in Russian missile attacks on Kyiv.

The Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office said the fatalities occurred Tuesday morning as Moscow's forces targeted the capital's energy facilities.

The attacks left some 50,000 people in Kyiv without power, according to Antonina Antosha, spokesperson for the DTEK group, which operates of the affected infrastructure.

___ Kyiv: Ukraine's president says that over the past week Russian attacks have knocked out 30% of his country's power plants.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a tweet on Tuesday that the strikes have caused “massive blackouts across the country.” Russian missiles have taken aim at Ukraine's power grid since Oct. 10, in an apparent bid to deny Ukrainians heating in the approaching winter and eroding civilian morale.

Moscow has also been bombarding Ukrainian cities with Iranian-made drones that have smashed into apartment blocks.

The Institute for the Study of War think tank, in Washington, that Moscow is “prioritising creating psychological terror effects on Ukraine over achieving tangible battlefield effects” amid Ukraine's recent counteroffensive.

___ Berlin: Estonia's foreign minister says that sanctions against Russia still haven't gone far enough.

European Union countries so far have approved several packages of sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu said Tuesday that the point of sanctions is to raise pressure to end the war, and the only person who can end the war at present is Russian President Vladimir Putin.

He argued that “as we have not reached that decision point, it means the sanctions have not reached the needed altitude.” He didn't specify what further sanctions should be imposed.

___ Kyiv: Russian forces are again peppering Ukraine with missile and drone attacks, mostly targeting energy facilities as winter approaches.

Moscow's attacks during the night and into Tuesday morning mostly concentrated on cities in the south and east of Ukraine, which Russia invaded almost eight months ago.

Numerous explosions were heard in the eastern city of Kharkiv, especially in its industrial area south of the city center.

Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv regional administration, wrote on Telegram that eight rockets were fired from the nearby Russian city of Belgorod. He said there were no injuries.

Russia also shelled the southern city of Mykolaiv with S-300 missiles, killing a man whose body was found in the debris of a two-story building, according to Regional Governor Vitalii Kim. Moscow's forces also launched Iranian-made drones against the city, with Ukraine shooting down five of them, Operational Command South said.

In the southeast city of Dnipro, an energy facility was hit twice and severely damaged, the deputy head of the president's office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said.

In Kyiv, an energy facility was hit three times. In Zhytomyr, 140 kilometers west of the capital, another energy facility was struck.

In the Zaporizhzhia region, so-called suicide drones caused a fire at an infrastructure facility.

___ Washington: A senior U.S. intelligence official says Russia has been using up its stock of munitions “at an unsustainable rate.” Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, said late Monday that Russian forces face a major supply shortage, especially of precision weapons such as cruise missiles.

Moscow is being forced to turn to countries such as Iran and North Korea for supplies and equipment, including UAVs, artillery shells and rockets.

International sanctions and export controls slapped on Russia are exposing its technological weaknesses, Haines said.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)