U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to take government equity stakes in strategic industries doesn’t apply to major defense firms, the head of Boeing’s defense unit said on Saturday, in contrast to previous comments by a senior government official.

The government wants industry to make investments in facilities, and large contractors are expected be able to do this without government assistance, Steve Parker, Chief Executive Officer of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, said on a panel at the Reagan National Defense Forum, an annual industry event in Simi Valley, California.

Speaking about the prospect of the U.S. government investing in exchange for ownership rights, “it really only applies on the supply chain, particularly for the smaller companies coming through where that might be a way forward for them,” Parker said.

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“I don’t think it really applies to the Primes,” Parker added, referring to big legacy defense contractors like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, RTX and Northrop Grumman.

Parker pointed to Boeing’s recent billions invested in St. Louis, Missouri where the company makes fighter jets.

In August, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the Trump administration was weighing equity stakes in major defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin, a move that sent shares of Lockheed, Boeing and other defense firms higher.

This year, the Trump administration has taken equity stakes in chipmaker Intel and rare earths company MP Materials, in an effort to prioritize national security in critical sectors where China has become increasingly dominant. Trump has said the government will take stakes in more companies.

(Reporting by Mike Stone and Joe Brock; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Deepa Babington)

A large-scale Russian drone and missile attack damaged power facilities in eight Ukrainian regions, causing blackouts and forcing nuclear power plants to cut power output, officials and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Saturday.

Russia has intensified its attacks on Ukraine’s energy sector and infrastructure in recent weeks, targeting power stations and railway hubs as winter deepens and the war approaches its fourth anniversary.

There was no breakthrough in U.S.-brokered talks this week aimed at ending the conflict.

Ukraine operates three nuclear power plants which produce more than half of the country’s electricity and IAEA said the plants cut production due to “widespread military activities overnight”.

The Ukrainian military said Russia had launched 653 drones and 51 missiles on Ukraine overnight. Ukrainian forces downed 585 drones and 30 missiles, the military said.

Power and heat generation facilities in Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions were targeted in the attack, Ukraine’s ministry for development of communities and territories said.

It said on Telegram that 9,500 customers remained without heat and 34,000 without water supply in the southern Odesa region.

“Port facilities (in Odesa) have also been attacked: part of the infrastructure has been de-energised, and operators have switched to backup power from generators,” the ministry said.

“Emergency repair work is already underway where safety conditions permit. Energy companies are doing everything possible to restore power to all customers as quickly as possible,” the energy ministry said on Telegram.

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Among the sites hit overnight was a railway hub near Kyiv, where the depot and railway carriages were damaged, Ukrainian state railway company Ukrzaliznytsia said.

The railway did not report any casualties from the attack, in the town of Fastiv.

“Russia continues to disregard any peace efforts and instead strikes critical civilian infrastructure, including our energy system and railways,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X.

“This shows that no decisions to strengthen Ukraine and raise pressure on Russia can be delayed. And especially not under the pretext of peace process,” he added.

Ukrzaliznytsia said on the Telegram messaging app that it was forced to cancel several suburban trains near the capital and the city of Chernihiv in northeastern Ukraine.

The Russian Defence Ministry said its forces launched a “massive strike” overnight in response to what it called Ukrainian attacks on civilian targets.

The ministry said the strike used high-precision, long-range air- and ground-based weapons, including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles and long-range drones.

It targeted Ukraine’s military-industrial enterprises, energy facilities supporting their operations, and port infrastructure used for military purposes, the ministry added.

Separately, sirens sounded early on Saturday in Lubartow in the Lublin region of eastern Poland, private broadcaster RMF FM reported.

RMF quoted local mayor Krzysztof Pasnik as saying the warning was activated due to the situation in Ukraine.

Poland scrambled jets overnight due to the Russian attacks on Ukraine, but the Operational Command of the Armed Forces said there were no airspace violations.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; additional reporting by Alan Charlish in Warsaw; Editing by William Mallard, Bernadette Baum and Aidan Lewis)