Kyiv struggles to restore heat and power after Russian strikes; oil depot fire reported in Russia as talks eyed in UAE
As of this morning, 1,940 apartment buildings in Ukraine’s capital were still without heating after Russia’s latest air assault, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, underscoring the strain on the city’s energy grid as temperatures remain well below freezing.
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Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app that crews were reconnecting buildings for the second time this month after an earlier Jan. 9 barrage forced widespread shutdowns. The renewed outages follow a combined drone and missile attack earlier this week that knocked out power and heating to thousands of apartment blocks in Kyiv amid subzero conditions.
On Tuesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said more than one million households in Kyiv were without electricity after the air strikes. Authorities have been racing to stabilize supply as utilities triage damaged substations and lines across the capital.
The onslaught also damaged energy and other critical infrastructure in the Vinnytsia, Dnipro, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Poltava and Sumy regions, officials said. It was the second major attack this month on Ukraine’s energy sector and other vital services in and around the capital, where sustained cold has elevated the stakes of any prolonged loss of heat or power.
Russia, which launched its full-scale offensive in February 2022, says it targets energy infrastructure that supports Ukraine’s “military-industrial complex.” Kyiv argues the strikes are a war crime intended to break civilian morale by plunging communities into darkness and cold.
The latest disruption in Ukraine coincided with a fire at an oil depot in Russia’s central Penza region, which local authorities said was sparked by debris from a downed drone. Penza regional governor Oleg Melnichenko wrote on Telegram that air defenses shot down four drones in total, with fragments from one falling on the depot in the city of Penza. He said emergency services were responding and reported no injuries or deaths.
There was no immediate independent confirmation of the incident or what type of drones were involved. Kyiv has not publicly claimed responsibility for attacks inside Russia, though cross-border strikes and drone incursions have grown more frequent as the war stretches into its third year.
Amid the renewed bombardment and infrastructure damage, the Kremlin said Ukrainian, U.S. and Russian officials will hold security talks today in the United Arab Emirates. The announcement followed a meeting in Moscow of top U.S. negotiators with President Vladimir Putin on a U.S.-drafted plan to end the war, according to the Kremlin’s account.
Diplomatic moves to halt Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II have gathered pace in recent months, but Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart on core issues, especially the question of territorial control in any postwar settlement. Ukraine’s leadership has maintained that any deal must respect its internationally recognized borders, while Russia has sought to cement its hold over occupied regions.
In Kyiv, the priority remained immediate: restoring heat and power as fast as possible and shielding critical nodes from further strikes. With crews attempting their second reconnection drive in as many weeks, officials urged residents to conserve energy where possible and brace for additional emergency shutdowns as repairs continue.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
