Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world
Russia resumed bombing Kyiv and its energy infrastructure just five days after Donald Trump said Vladimir Putin had agreed to a weeklong ceasefire owing to the extreme cold in Ukraine.
The massive barrage came on the eve of the second round of US-brokered talks between negotiators from Washington, Kyiv and Moscow, which were set to begin on Wednesday in Abu Dhabi. The US president last week said his Russian counterpart had agreed to stop striking energy assets in Ukraine — a ceasefire that was confirmed by the Kremlin, but only for a few days.
On Monday to Tuesday nights, Russian forces launched 71 ballistic and cruise missiles and 450 attack drones in a massive bombardment, according to Ukraine’s air force. Air defences managed to shoot down 38 of the missiles and 412 drones.
DTEK, the country’s largest private power company, said two thermal power plants in central Ukraine had been hit early on Tuesday. Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said the attack had knocked out heating to more than 1,170 high-rise buildings.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the bombardment “a targeted attack specifically on energy facilities”. Besides the capital, Zelenskyy said the regions of Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Odesa and Vinnytsia were also attacked.
Moscow’s large-scale salvo occurred hours before Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday. He joined Zelenskyy in paying respects to fallen soldiers on Independence Square before addressing Ukraine’s parliament.
Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski wrote on X: “So much for Putin’s promise to @POTUS.”
Zelenskyy earlier this week blamed his European partners for delaying shipments of vital air-defence munitions, leaving his country well short of the only interceptors capable of taking down Russia’s ballistic missiles. Many of Ukraine’s western-supplied Patriot systems have sat “empty”, he said.
During a cabinet meeting last Thursday, Trump said he had “personally asked President Putin not to fire on Kyiv and the cities and towns for a week during this . . . extraordinary cold”.
The Kremlin later confirmed that Putin had agreed only to halt air strikes on energy infrastructure in Kyiv and elsewhere through to February 1.
The large-scale assault came as temperatures overnight plunged to minus 23C. An FT reporter heard several large explosions that reverberated across the Ukrainian capital.
As Kyiv endures its coldest winter of the war yet, Russia is exploiting the cold by pounding Ukraine’s vital infrastructure. Millions of people have been left in the cold and dark without electricity, heating and water, bringing the capital of some 4mn to the brink of catastrophe.
Senior Ukrainian officials close to Zelenskyy told the FT that they had tried for weeks without success to get Russia to agree a ceasefire on energy facilities.
US and Ukrainian officials then discussed the idea of a so-called “energy ceasefire” with Russia during the first round of trilateral peace talks in Abu Dhabi on January 23 and 24. Ukrainian officials involved told the FT it was the US delegation’s idea for Ukraine and Russia to agree to halt strikes on each other’s energy facilities as a good-faith measure and a step towards de-escalation amid contentious peace talks.
Zelenskyy later said the Americans raised “the issue of de-escalation, with both sides demonstrating certain steps toward refraining from the use of long-range capabilities in order to create more space for diplomacy”.
The second round of trilateral talks between the US, Ukraine and Russia is expected to begin on Wednesday, and carry on into Thursday in the United Arab Emirates’ capital.
Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev was in Miami over the weekend for talks with US officials, including Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, Treasury secretary Scott Bessent, Jared Kushner and White House senior adviser Josh Gruenbaum. Witkoff called the meeting “productive and constructive”.
Additional reporting by Raphael Minder in Warsaw
