Russia removing nuclear warheads from missiles, firing at Ukraine - UK

Russia is likely removing nuclear warheads from aging nuclear cruise missiles and firing unarmed munitions at Ukraine, Britain's military intelligence said on Saturday.

The defense ministry said open source imagery shows wreckage of an air-launched cruise missile fired at Ukraine which seem to have been designed in the 1980s as a nuclear delivery system, adding that ballast was probably being substituted for the warheads.

Such a system will still produce damage through the missile's kinetic energy and unspent fuel. However, it is unlikely to achieve reliable effects against intended targets, the ministry added in its daily intelligence update posted on Twitter.

"Whatever Russia's intent, this improvisation highlights the level of depletion in Russia's stock of long-range missiles," the ministry said.

Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 26 November 2022Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/htZ2ZsfvmF #StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/RZ6by8tN5p — Ministry of Defence (@DefenceHQ) November 26, 2022

Ukrainian authorities are gradually restoring power, aided by the reconnection of the country's four nuclear plants, but millions of people are still without heat or electricity after the most devastating Russian air strikes of the war.

More than two-thirds of the Ukrainian capital was still without power on Thursday morning and a swathe of residents had no running water, a day after Russian missile strikes caused Kyiv's biggest outages in nine months of war.

The capital was one of the main targets of the latest wave of attacks on energy facilities that cut power in many regions and made emergency blackouts necessary in others to conserve energy and enable repairs as winter sets in.