Russia launched its “most powerful” attack this year on Ukraine’s battered energy infrastructure overnight, Kyiv said on Tuesday, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without heating in freezing temperatures ahead of talks aimed at ending the four-year war.
The strikes came as temperatures fell to their lowest levels since the war began in February 2022, killing two teenagers in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia and damaging a Soviet-era Second World War monument.
The barrage took place a day before Ukrainian and Russian negotiators were due to meet for a second round of US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi, scheduled to begin on Wednesday.
“Taking advantage of the coldest days of winter to terrorise people is more important to Russia than turning to diplomacy,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, condemning the assault.
He added that Russia had “once again disregarded the efforts of the American side ”.
US President Donald Trump urged Vladimir Putin to “end the war”, saying he “would like” his Russian counterpart to extend a brief pause in attacks because of the extreme cold.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who visited Kyiv on Tuesday, said that “Russian attacks like those last night do not signal seriousness about peace.”
An air raid alert sounded across Kyiv during Rutte’s visit.
AFP journalists heard explosions across the capital overnight, and residents in hundreds of buildings woke to find their heating cut off as temperatures dropped towards minus 20 degrees Celsius.
More than 1,100 residential buildings remained without heat as of late Tuesday, Restoration Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said.
Some residents gathered outside a damaged building, stepping over creaking debris and a thick layer of ice covering the ground.
“Our windows are broken and we have no heating,” Anastasia Grytsenko told AFP. “We don’t know what to do.”
Russia’s defence ministry confirmed it had launched “a massive strike” against “Ukrainian military-industrial complex enterprises and energy facilities”.
The Kremlin had said last week that it agreed to a US request not to strike Kyiv for seven days, a pause that ended on Sunday.
Ukraine reported no large-scale Russian attacks on the capital last week while continuing to accuse Moscow of strikes elsewhere in the country.
“Several types of ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as drones, were used to strike high-rise buildings and thermal power plants,” Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
“Hundreds of thousands of families, including children, were deliberately left without heat during the harshest winter frosts,” he added.
Tuesday’s assault on energy facilities was “the most powerful” since the start of 2026, Ukraine’s largest private energy provider said.
Ukraine’s air force reported that Russia launched 71 missiles and 450 attack drones.
Six people were wounded in Kyiv, officials said.
A drone strike on Zaporizhzhia killed two teenagers and injured at least 11 others, according to authorities.
Symbolic and cynical
The base of Kyiv’s towering Soviet-era Motherland statue was damaged in the strikes.
“It is both symbolic and cynical: the aggressor state strikes a place of remembrance of the struggle against aggression in the 20th century, while repeating its crimes in the 21st century,” Culture Minister Tetiana Berezhna wrote on social media.
Recent Russian attacks have repeatedly cut electricity and heating to tens of thousands of homes.
Strikes also hit Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, temporarily cutting heating supplies to around 100,000 customers.
Authorities were forced to shut off heating to more than 800 homes to prevent the wider network from freezing, the regional governor said.
Overnight temperatures plunged to minus 19 degrees Celsius in Kyiv and minus 23 degrees in Kharkiv.
US pushes for deal
Russian-installed authorities in southern Ukraine said Ukrainian shelling had killed three people in the town of Nova Kakhovka.
According to Kremlin-backed officials, the shelling struck a municipal building and a fruit shop.
“There are dead: three people, including an employee of the administration,” said Vladimir Saldo, the Moscow-appointed head of the Russian-controlled part of the Kherson region.
Nova Kakhovka fell to Russian forces during the first days of the 2022 invasion.
The United States has been pushing for a negotiated settlement, but a first round of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi last month failed to produce a breakthrough.
A second round of talks is due to begin on Wednesday in the Emirati capital and is expected to focus on the sensitive issue of territory.
Russia has demanded that Kyiv withdraw from the Donetsk region and has repeatedly said it is prepared to seize the rest of eastern Ukraine by force if diplomacy fails.
