Name: Russia launches ballistic missile attack on Ukraine | BBC News
Uploaded: 2026-02-12T17:07:15.000Z
Duration: 6 min 10 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Participle clauses

Russia has pounded Ukraine with drones and ballistic missiles overnight, targeting energy systems and injuring at least seven people.

the cities of Dnipro and ODESA, officials say 2,600 buildings are now without power in the capital after what Mayor Vitaly Klitschko called a massive attack on Kyiv.

In the southern city of Odesa, nearly 300,000 residents were left without electricity or running water following a Russian attack.

According to the country's deputy Prime Minister, almost 200 buildings in the city also lost heating.

That latest attack on Ukraine comes as a leading German economic think tank says U.S.

aid for Ukraine fell by 99% in 2025, reflecting the change in U.S. policy.

In its report, the Kiel Institute says Europe's contributions have sharply increased in response and reached levels which almost offset the collapse of American support.

Its data shows that European allocations for financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine grew by 59%, mostly backed by EU institutions.

Military aid increased by two thirds and was dominated by countries in Northern and Western Europe.

While the UK Government has announced that it will urgently provide new air defense missiles and systems worth more than 500 million pounds to Ukraine to protect against Russian attacks.

This will include 150 million pounds worth of equipment bought from from the US as part of a NATO initiative.

Well, in the last hour, the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutter, has been giving a briefing shortly before hosting a meeting of Defence ministers.

Let's have a listen to what he had to say.

As the United States continues to drive efforts to bring the war to a just and lasting end.

Russia continues to pursue civilian targets, including energy infrastructure.

So it is still essential that allies continue to step up support, including through NATO's PEARL initiative.

It is ensuring that essential US equipment is delivered to Ukraine, paid for by allies and partners.

This afternoon we will hold a meeting of the NATO Ukraine Council.

We will be joined by Defence Minister Michael Fedorov and he will brief us on the situation on the ground and on Ukraine's long term needs.

We will also be joined by the office of the EU High representatives as we work closely with the European Union on Ukraine and of course, on so many other issues.

Ukraine's security is linked with our own.

We must ensure that when this war ends, Russia will never try again to invade Ukraine.

Well, let's go straight to Keith and join our correspondent there, Sarah Rainsford.

So, Sarah, let's start with what's happened overnight.

Those extensive attacks, not just hitting where you are in Kiev, but

Another night of Russian attacks in which they targeted all the big cities here in Ukraine.

So Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Odessa in the south were all targeted with missiles and drones.

This time, 24 missiles were told by the Ukrainian authorities to.

And some of those, of course, did get through, which underlines the point that Ukraine makes over and over again that it needs proper air defenses, it needs more air defense missiles in order, in particular to intercept ballistic missiles that Russia continues to target, used to target Ukraine.

So we know this morning that here in Kyiv, according to the mayor, another two and a half thousand or so tower blocks have been left without heating after one power plant in particular was hit overnight.

We visited a power plant here in Kyiv ourselves in recent days and seen the, the absolute devastations of that power plant by repeated strikes with ballistic missiles by Russia.

So it's quite clear that they are targeting the energy infrastructure.

And that happened again overnight last night.

And of course, all of this comes as we've got that announcement that the UK government has announced it's going to fund more defense missiles systems to the tune of some £500 million.

As we said in the introduction, Sarah, that could help plug the shortfall from US funding.

What's your assessment of how significant this will be in terms of assisting the Ukrainian military?

Yeah, I mean this, this pearl system, as it's called, that was introduced last year by the European Union, is supposed to make up for the complete lack now of donations, military aid from the United States.

It is a significant, of course, contribution by the European Union and many countries have committed to take part in that.

This is the first time that the UK has specifically donated its £150 million in terms of £150 million in order to buy US weaponry in order to protect Ukraine's skies.

But there are multiple countries, for example, Italy, which has said that it won't pay any money into the pearl system, whilst there are negotiations going on for a peace deal because it doesn't think that it's worth it.

There's obviously a massive political discussion going on amongst NATO members about who contributes what and how much Ukraine needs now that the United States is no longer providing anything for free to here in Ukraine.

Ukraine says over and over again it needs a lot more than that in order to protect itself.

Cities, particularly as those Russian strikes continue?

I mean, we know in the negotiations that have been taking place over recent weeks between Russia and Ukraine that the United States has been pushing for another, another energy truce, as they call it, a pause in the strikes by both sides on energy infrastructure.

Ukraine has said it's willing to do that.

Russia hasn't responded only with, with further attacks.

Sarah Rainsford in Kyiv, as always, thank you very much for bringing us up to date.