Intensive Russian strikes paralyze Ukraine… Zelensky appeals to the United States
Intensive Russian strikes carried out in the early hours of Saturday caused widespread power and heating outages affecting hundreds of thousands of people in northern Ukraine and in the capital, Kyiv.
These developments come as the country faces a severe cold wave and a sharp drop in temperatures.
The local energy company in the Chernihiv region said that electricity was cut off for hundreds of thousands of subscribers after a major energy facility sustained heavy damage near the town of Nizhyn, as a result of the Russian overnight attack.
In the capital Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced that around six thousand buildings were deprived of heating, as temperatures reached minus 12 degrees Celsius on Saturday morning, exacerbating humanitarian concerns amid the continued Russian targeting of vital infrastructure.
One dead and 23 wounded in Kyiv and Kharkiv
Alongside the energy crisis, the Russian strikes left one person dead and 23 wounded in and around Kyiv, as well as in the city of Kharkiv in the northeast of the country. Ukrainian authorities reported that the attacks were carried out using missiles and drones, amid a state of maximum alert and official warnings of additional waves of shelling.
Klitschko explained that the capital was subjected to an “intensive hostile attack,” noting that non-residential buildings were targeted and that fires broke out due to drone debris, in addition to the disruption of heating and water supplies in some districts.
In Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov announced that Iranian-made Shahed drones caused damage to several residential buildings near the Russian border, while police confirmed that 15 people were injured and that two health facilities were damaged.
The Russian escalation came just hours after a meeting of delegations from Russia, Ukraine and the United States, marking the first officially announced direct negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv under the American plan to end the war ongoing since February 2022.
Before the continuation of the talks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stressed that the territorial issue remains the most complex, while Moscow reaffirmed its demand for the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the Donbas region in the east of the country, reflecting the depth of disagreements despite the negotiation track.
Zelensky calls for the implementation of air defense commitments
In the aftermath of the attack, Zelensky urged the United States to “fully” implement the agreements related to strengthening air defense systems, which he said were reached with U.S. President Donald Trump during their meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week.
The Ukrainian president stated that the recent strikes on energy facilities demonstrate the urgent need to accelerate the delivery of air defense systems, at a time when neither side has disclosed precise details about the nature of the agreed support, leaving the future of Ukraine’s air protection dependent on forthcoming political and military developments.
