KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia carried out a major attack on Ukraine overnight in what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday was a breach of its commitment to hold off on attacks on energy infrastructure, a day before representatives of the two countries were due to attend U.S.-brokered talks on ending the 4-year-old all-out war.
The bombardment included hundreds of drones and a record 32 ballistic missiles, wounding at least 10 people. It specifically took aim at the power grid, Zelenskyy said, as part of what Ukraine says is Moscow’s ongoing campaign to deny civilians light, heating and running water during the coldest winter in years.
“Taking advantage of the coldest days of winter to terrorize people is more important to Russia than diplomacy,” Zelenskyy said. Temperatures in Kyiv fell to minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit) during the night and stood at minus 16 C (minus 3 F) on Tuesday.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte visited Kyiv in a show of support. Zelenskyy met him and urged allies to send more air defense supplies and bring “maximum pressure” to bear on Russia to end its full-scale invasion.
Officials have described recent talks between Moscow and Kyiv delegations as constructive. But after a year of efforts, the Trump administration is still searching for a breakthrough on key issues such as who keeps the Ukrainian land that Russia’s army has occupied, and a comprehensive settlement appears distant. The Abu Dhabi talks are scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine is ready to discuss how to end the fighting. "But no one is going to surrender,” he said.
Dispute over power grid attacks
A Kremlin official said last week that Russia had agreed to halt strikes on Kyiv for a week until Feb. 1 because of the frigid temperatures, following a personal request from U.S. President Donald Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, the bitter cold is continuing and so are Russia’s aerial attacks.
Zelenskyy, however, accused Russia of breaking its commitment to hold off its attacks on Ukraine's energy assets, claiming the weeklong pause was due to come into force last Friday.
“We believe this Russian strike clearly violates what the American side discussed, and there must be consequences,” he said.
The bombardment of at least five regions of Ukraine comprised 450 long-range drones and 70 missiles, Ukrainian officials said.
Russian officials provided no immediate response to Zelenskyy's comments.
Ukraine says Russia has tried to wear down Ukrainians’ appetite for the fight by creating hardship for the civilian population living in dark, freezing homes.
It has tried to wreck Ukraine’s electricity network, targeting substations, transformers, turbines and generators at power plants. Ukraine’s largest private power company, DTEK, said that the overnight attack hit its thermal power plants in the ninth major assault since October.
NATO show of support
The overnight strikes raise doubts about Moscow’s intentions on the eve of talks, Rutte said, calling them “a really bad signal.”
He said it was clear that the attacks only strengthen Ukrainians’ resolve.
Rutte addressed the Ukrainian parliament during his visit and said that countries in the military alliance "are ready to provide support quickly and consistently” as peace efforts drag on.
Since last summer, NATO members have provided 75% of all missiles, and 90% of those used for Ukraine's air defense, under a financial arrangement whereby alliance countries buy American weapons to give to Ukraine, he said.
European countries, fearing Moscow's ambitions, see their own future security as being on the line in Ukraine.
“Be assured that NATO stands with Ukraine and is ready to do so for years to come," Rutte said. “Your security is our security. Your peace is our peace. And it must be lasting.”
Kyiv apartment blocks left without power
In Kyiv, officials said that five people were wounded in the strikes that damaged and set fire to residential buildings, a kindergarten and a gas station in various parts of the capital, according to the State Emergency Service.
By early morning, 1,170 apartment buildings in the capital were without heating, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. That set back desperate repair operations that had restored power to all but 80 apartment buildings, he said.
Russia also struck Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, where injuries were reported, and the southern Odesa region.
The attack also damaged the Hall of Fame at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, at the foot of the Motherland Monument in Kyiv, Ukrainian Culture Minister Tetiana Berezhna said.
“It is symbolic and cynical at the same time: The aggressor state strikes a place of memory about the fight against aggression in the 20th century, repeating crimes in the 21st,” Berezhna said.
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