KYIV\/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States said on Thursday that Iranian military trainers had been sent to Crimea to assist Russian forces using Iranian-made drones to attack targets in Ukraine, adding a new international element to a war that has already worsened some geopolitical tensions.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian citizens endured the first day of nationwide scheduled power outages since the war began eight months ago so repairs could be made to damaged or destroyed energy plants as winter approaches.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can confirm that Russian military personnel based in Crimea have been piloting Iranian UAVs and using them to conduct kinetic strikes across Ukraine, including in strikes against Kyiv in recent days,\u201d U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price told a daily briefing with reporters, referring to unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe assess that … Iranian military personnel were on the ground in Crimea and assisted Russia in these operations,\u201d Price said. He said \u201cwe do have credible information\u201d but he did not provide evidence.<\/p>\n
Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has used the southern peninsula to train soldiers and reopen Soviet-era military bases as part of the invasion of its neighbour.<\/p>\n
There was no immediate public reaction to the U.S. allegations from Tehran but it has denied the drones are Iranian-made. Moscow has also denied using Iranian drones in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s defence and foreign ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Thursday that Washington is going to pursue all means to \u201cexpose, deter and confront\u201d Iran\u2019s supply of munitions to Russia, including more sanctions, while also considering air defence solutions for Ukraine.<\/p>\n
European Union members have agreed on new measures against Iran, the bloc said, while Britain imposed sanctions on senior military figures and a firm it said were involved in the supply of Iranian drones to Moscow.<\/p> Russia and Iran have also been involved in the 11-year-long civil war in Syria, together supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.<\/p>\n \u201cIran and Russia, they can lie to the world, but they certainly can\u2019t hide the facts, and the fact is this: Tehran is now directly engaged on the ground,\u201d Kirby said, without providing details.<\/p>\n People across Ukraine were urged to use less power as the government enforced curbs on electricity usage between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. on Thursday.<\/p>\n The first such restrictions since Russia\u2019s Feb. 24 invasion included blackouts in some areas, and followed a barrage of Russian attacks that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said had struck a third of all power plants.<\/p>\n \u201cRestoring the electricity grid … will take a certain amount of time, and we are not talking about days or even weeks. In order to restore the reliability of our energy system, several weeks will be needed,\u201d Volodymyr Kudritskiy, chairman of the board of national energy company Ukrenergo, said on state television.<\/p>\n That estimate was conditional on a end to mass shelling, he said.<\/p>\n The northeast region of Sumy went without water as some grocery stores in the capital Kyiv reported sales of bottled water picking up in preparation for possible shortages.<\/p> \u201cThere is much anger against Russian leaders and Russian people,\u201d said Mikhaylo Holovnenko, a resident of Kyiv.<\/p>\n \u201cBut we are ready for outages. We have candles, charged power banks. Ukraine is charged to win.\u201d<\/p>\n Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday inspected a training ground for mobilised troops in Ryazan, southeast of Moscow, and was shown firing shots from a sniper rifle in footage apparently intended to show his personal backing for soldiers heading to fight in Ukraine.<\/p>\n Russia\u2019s defence ministry said it was again targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure, a strategy it has stepped up since the appointment this month of Sergei Surovikin – nicknamed \u201cGeneral Armageddon\u201d by the Russian media – as commander of what Moscow calls its \u201cspecial military operation\u201d in Ukraine.<\/p>\n In two video addresses on Thursday, Zelenskiy, without providing evidence, accused Russia of preparing to cause a large-scale disaster in southern Ukraine.<\/p>\n Ukraine has information that Russian forces have mined the dam and units of the Kakhovska hydroelectric power station, Zelenskiy asserted, adding that 80 settlements, including the strategic city of Kherson, could experience rapid flooding.<\/p>\n Zelenskiy said that if Russia \u201cis seriously considering such a scenario, it means that the terrorists are very clearly aware that they cannot hold not only Kherson, but also the entire south of our country, including Crimea.\u201d<\/p>\n The Ukrainian military continued to try to press its advance towards Kherson, the only regional capital Russian forces have captured. Control of Kherson gives Russia a land route to Crimea and the mouth of the Dnipro river, which bisects Ukraine.<\/p>\n On the eastern battlegrounds of the Donbas, an industrial region comprising the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, the situation was still difficult for Ukrainian forces, Zelenskiy said in his Thursday night video address.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are gradually advancing and pushing out the enemy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\nBLACKOUTS IN UKRAINE<\/h2>\n