Russia unleashed another massive barrage of missiles and drones on Kyiv overnight, knocking out power, water and heating to much of the Ukrainian capital and plunging it deeper into crisis amid the harshest winter of the war.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that the Russian strikes had “involved a significant number of ballistic and cruise missiles” and “more than 300 attack drones”.
Russia has intensified its aerial attacks on Ukraine and its critical infrastructure over the winter in an effort, Kyiv officials say, to bring the country to its knees as a deep freeze grips the war-weary country.
The barrage came hours after the Kremlin said that US President Donald Trump had invited Vladimir Putin to sit with him on a “Board of Peace” set up to mediate the conflict in Gaza and other geopolitical hotspots, potentially including Ukraine.
Trump sent an invitation to Zelenskyy for him to join the Board of Peace, according to two people familiar with the matter. But one of those people said there was some hesitancy on the part of the Ukrainian leader due to the fact that Putin and other heads of state who have supported Russia’s war are among the invitees.
Before accepting, Zelenskyy wants to better understand how the board will operate, the people said, and whether Trump intends for it to operate independently or take the place of a board currently being discussed by American and Ukrainian negotiators as part of a peace plan to bring Russia’s war to an end.
A senior Ukrainian official told the FT last week that the current draft of the 20-point US-Ukraine peace plan “provides that its implementation will be monitored and guaranteed by a Board of Peace, chaired by President Trump”.
The official said the plan stated that Ukraine, Europe, Nato, Russia and the US would all be part of a board established particularly for the Russia-Ukraine war. The Trump administration has not clarified whether this is separate, according to the official.
Zelenskyy has not yet decided whether to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, according to his office. A senior official close to the president said that, for now, he would remain in Kyiv to co-ordinate the emergency response to Russia’s attack.
The Ukrainian president had been expected to meet Trump and European leaders in the Swiss resort and to potentially sign a key document on the country’s economic prosperity that has been negotiated with the US. It is now unclear whether that will take place, the official said.
Kyiv was still reeling from previous attacks when the missiles and drones again struck its critical infrastructure early on Tuesday, knocking out heating to 5,635 multistorey buildings, mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Almost 80 per cent of the buildings were those where heating supply had been restored after an attack on January 9, he added.
Much of the eastern side of the capital across the Dnipro river was without water supply and power on Tuesday morning, according to Klitschko. Several areas of central Kyiv were also without power, heating and water.
Ukrenergo, the state energy company, said emergency power outages had been introduced in several regions of Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said Russia also attacked the regions of Vinnytsia, Dnipro, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Poltava and Sumy.
Public utility companies and state energy and emergency services raced Tuesday morning to restore heat, water and electricity to residents, as temperatures hovered around minus 14C.
Ukraine’s air defence forces, which have faced painful shortages due to the US slow-rolling munitions, intercepted “a significant number of targets”, Zelenskyy added. But numerous, wall-shaking explosions were heard by an FT reporter in central Kyiv in the night.
“The day before this strike, we finally received the necessary missiles, which helped significantly,” Zelenskyy said, adding that more interceptor munitions “are critically needed”.
Zelenskyy had warned in his evening address on Monday night, hours ahead of the latest strikes, that Russia was preparing another bombardment.
Ukrainian foreign minister Andriy Sybiha on Tuesday morning called the latest attack “barbaric”, and said it should be “a wake-up call to world leaders gathering in Davos”.
“Support for the Ukrainian people is urgent; there will be no peace in Europe without a lasting peace for Ukraine; peace can only be achieved through strength,” he said.
He called for “urgent additional energy assistance, air defence and interceptors, as well as sanctions pressure on Moscow”.
“The resilience of the Ukrainian people cannot be an excuse for this war to continue,” he added.
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