El Niño will likely shift weather patterns to bring more rain, but much snow still isn’t forecast for the northern sates

Winter in the United States looks like it will generally be wetter and warmer, but not necessarily snowier, according to the federal government’s seasonal outlook and other meteorologists’ forecasts. You can thank or blame El Niño.

El Niño is likely to shift weather patterns to bring more moisture, but with it higher temperatures. That should help erase persistent western drought, but it is unlikely to make northern snow-lovers happy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said on Thursday.

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© Photograph: Selcuk Acar/Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Selcuk Acar/Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Selcuk Acar/Anadolu/Getty Images

Russia has found a way to cut Ukraine’s power lines that no repair crew can undo. A Russian drone has severed a unique power transmission tower at the Dnipro River crossing in Kyiv, and it cannot be restored, Ukrenergo board chairman Vitaly Zaichenko says, as the grid operator rushes to build alternative ways to keep electricity flowing, Interfax reports.

Russia has spent the war trying to switch off Ukraine’s lights. Now, it is widening the campaign before winter with a new tactic: drones that slice through the steel towers carrying high-voltage lines.

“Everyone has seen the video showing the destruction of one of the unique power transmission towers at the crossing over the Dnipro in Kyiv. It was severed, and it is impossible to restore it,” Zaichenko continues.

He adds that now the company is developing new technical solutions "on the fly, and very fast." It will start the procedures for those solutions from 15 October, he notes. Russia’s use of drones able to sever metal towers is a new and serious challenge for Ukraine’s power engineers.

When the spare parts are as scarce as the targets are plentiful

Rebuilding is colliding with a global shortage. Ukrenergo faces serious difficulties getting backup equipment, Zaichenko explains, because the whole world’s energy system is expanding at once and everyone needs the same hardware.

“There is a real problem with equipment. The global power system is expanding, and everyone needs energy equipment. There is a tough queue,” Zaichenko says.

Ukraine has faced such challenges since August 2026, when Russia began launching its jet-powered drones. Kyiv still has no effective solution against them and relies more on a mix of air defenses, such as automated turrets and interceptor drones.

Kyiv has also engaged over 100 private air defense system brigades to protect its enterprises in the ranks of the Ukrainian Air Forces.

Russia hit the CHP-5 thermal plant in Kharkiv on the evening of 11 October. It came hours after US President Donald Trump announced an energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address.

Trump had announced the energy truce earlier that day, though Kyiv reported no part in any such deal, as well as Moscow. Yet in this one week, Russia carried out more than 200 strikes on Ukraine’s power generation and transmission and 17 on its gas and oil sites, killing more than 150 people and wounding more than 700, according to Zelenskyy.

“All day today, there were Russian Shaheds in the sky. There are Shaheds in the sky now, too. There were strikes by aerial bombs. There were strikes on our energy. Just now there was a strike on CHP-5 in Kharkiv,” Zelenskyy states.

Ukraine welcomes the agreement Trump announced and is ready to stop striking Russian energy if Russia does the same. For that to mean anything, he stresses, it has to become part of reality.

A one-word answer from Moscow

Ukraine has offered many de-escalation steps, Zelenskyy notes, but Russian ruler Vladimir Putin met them all with the same refusal. He voices hope that the Russian leader would finally tell the US, Ukraine, and the world something other than killing and deception, something that leads to a real and dignified peace.

Ukraine wants peace, and the question is whether Russia does. The Armed Forces have received all the relevant orders to defend the country, he confirms.

Allies line up fresh support

Zelenskyy says he also spoke with members of the US Congress and, the day before with the UK prime minister, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Norway’s prime minister, all of whom offered help.

Ukraine is also working with the EU on financing for its defense and budget stability, and preparing new steps on European integration.

Russia has a new warhead for its drones, and it is built to cut down power lines. For the first time, a jet drone has carried a shaped "cumulative-cutting" charge designed to sever high-voltage pylons and iron bridges, Serhii Beskrestnov, presidential adviser, known as Flash, said, as Russia opened its heaviest assault on Ukraine's power grid since last winter.

On 30 September, Russia launched its massed fall-winter campaign on Ukraine's energy infrastructure since the last heating season, hitting power sites across 11 regions overnight with missiles and drones, Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi said.

The new warhead fits the aim: Flash says it is meant to bring down the high-voltage lines that carry the country's electricity. And Ukraine enters the winter exposed, with its energy resilience plans less than half complete.

A new charge targets the pylons

The device, which Flash calls a cumulative-cutting special load, is designed specifically to bring down high-voltage pylons and iron bridge structures.

"It consists of a main charge weighing 40 kilograms and four strike modules," he says.

In his reading, Russia intends to go after the major transmission lines that move power across the country, the backbone of the grid, rather than the substations it has struck before.

The campaign builds toward November

On 29 September, two senior Ukrainian officials told The Economist that Russia launched a three-part campaign of attacks on Kyiv, combining massive bombardments, sabotage, and the creation of political chaos. These efforts aimed at destabilizing the Ukrainian capital would peak by November, they said.

According to a representative of the Security Service of Ukraine, Russia has "thousands" of drones in its arsenal and is simultaneously expanding its stockpile of ballistic missiles. The plan is to "deploy the entire arsenal over the next two months," given that Ukraine lacks an effective weapon against jet-powered drones.