Khaberni - Intense Russian strikes carried out in the early hours of Saturday caused widespread power and heating outages affecting hundreds of thousands of residents in northern Ukraine and the capital, Kyiv.
This comes at a time when the country is facing a harsh cold wave and a sharp drop in temperatures.
The local energy company in the Chernihiv region said that power was cut for hundreds of thousands of subscribers after a major power facility near the town of Nijin was severely damaged due to a Russian attack overnight.
In the capital Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced that about six thousand buildings were deprived of heating services, as temperatures on Saturday morning dropped to minus 12 degrees Celsius, exacerbating humanitarian concerns with the continued Russian targeting of critical infrastructure.
One killed and 23 injured in Kyiv and Kharkiv
Alongside the energy crisis, Russian strikes resulted in one death and 23 injuries in Kyiv and its surrounding areas, in addition to the northeastern city of Kharkiv. Ukrainian authorities reported that the attacks were carried out with missiles and drones, amid a high state of alert and official warnings of further bombing waves.
Klitschko explained that the capital was subjected to a «massive hostile attack», noting that non-residential buildings were targeted and fires broke out due to debris from drones, as well as heating and water outages in some neighborhoods.
In Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov announced that Iranian-made «Shahed» drones caused damage to several residential buildings near the Russian border, while police confirmed 15 people were injured and two medical facilities were damaged.
The Russian escalation came hours after delegations from Russia, Ukraine, and the United States met, in the first publicly announced direct negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv under the American plan to end the ongoing war since February 2022.
Before completing the talks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky emphasized that the land issue remains the most complicated, while Moscow insisted on the demand for the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, reflecting the depth of differences despite the negotiated track.
Zelensky calls for the full implementation of air defense promises
Following the attack, Zelensky called on the United States to fully implement the agreements related to enhancing air defense systems, which he said were reached with President Donald Trump during their meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week.
The Ukrainian president emphasized that the recent strikes on energy facilities demonstrate the urgent need to expedite the delivery of air defense systems, at a time when neither party has revealed precise details about the nature of the agreed support, leaving the future of Ukrainian air protection subject to upcoming political and military developments.
