Russia launched another vast attack on Ukraine’s energy system, rocking Kyiv with explosions overnight and into Saturday morning, leaving 1.2 million properties without power countrywide during sub-zero winter cold.
Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said more than 3,200 buildings in the capital remained without heating in the late evening, down from 6,000 in the morning. Night-time temperatures were hovering around -10 degrees Celsius (14 F).
More than 160 emergency crews were operating in the capital to restore heating, he said. Crews were also at work in other affected areas, mainly in western and southern Ukraine.
Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal, writing on Telegram after the daily meeting of officials devoted to energy, said more than 800,000 Kyiv households were still without power as were a further 400,000 in Chernihiv region, north of the capital.
“As for power, constant enemy attacks unfortunately keep the situation from being stabilised,” he wrote.
Many residents’ apartments were already freezing cold from disruption to Kyiv’s centralised heat distribution system following previous attacks.
Moscow carried out the strikes as trilateral, U.S.-brokered talks between Russia and Ukraine continued into a second day in the United Arab Emirates, later adjourning with no sign of compromise. More talks were due to take place next weekend.
Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said Russia targeted the capital and four regions in the country’s north and east.
“We are quickly restoring damaged power generation facilities, increasing imports as much as possible, and introducing new alternative capacity,” she said.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said one person was killed in the capital city and four were injured, three of them requiring hospitalisation, while over 30 people including a child were injured in Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv.
Klitschko visited Kyiv’s worst-affected district, the northeastern suburb of Troyeshchyna, where 600 buildings were without power, water and heat.
He said vulnerable residents were being given hot food and medicine, and that the city was rolling out extra, heated shelters which would be operating around the clock in the area.
Kyiv recently loosened its wartime military curfew to allow people in freezing apartments to go to heated tents or public buildings at night.
Russia, which has pummelled Ukraine’s power grid since November 2022, nine months into its full-scale invasion, is conducting its heaviest bombardment campaign on energy facilities this winter. People across Ukraine have been left with only a few hours of electricity a day, some without heat or water.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had unleashed 375 drones and 21 missiles, including two of its rarely deployed Tsirkon ballistic missiles, in its overnight attack.
The sky over Kyiv was lit up by regular orange flashes as air defences fired on missiles and drones descending on the capital. Loud booms echoed around the city’s tall buildings.
Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, reported strikes in at least four districts. A medical facility was among the buildings damaged.
Before Saturday, Kyiv had already endured two mass overnight attacks since the New Year that have knocked out power and heating to hundreds of residential buildings.
