Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia on Tuesday of violating an agreement with Donald Trump to hold off from attacking Ukraine’s energy systems in the depths of a freezing winter, as its forces carried out large-scale airstrikes on Kyiv on the eve of three-way talks in Abu Dhabi.
Ukraine’s president said Moscow carried out a massive and “deliberate” attack overnight as temperatures in Kyiv plunged to -20C. It involved a record number of 71 ballistic missiles as well as 450 drones, he said, sent to destroy energy infrastructure.
More than 1,000 residential buildings in Kyiv were without heating on Tuesday.
Zelenskyy said Russia had broken a promise that Trump had last week framed as a personal request to Vladimir Putin to stop hitting Kyiv and “various towns” for a week because of the exceptionally cold weather. “He agreed to do that. And I have to tell you it was very nice,” the US president said on Thursday.
The Kremlin later announced the truce would last only until Sunday. According to Ukraine, the ceasefire should have continued until this Friday.
Zelenskyy said Russia had used this brief pause in fighting to stockpile weapons. “Either Russia now believes that there are four incomplete days in a week instead of seven, or they are really betting only on war and waiting for the coldest days of this winter,” he said.
“We believe this Russian strike clearly violates what the American side discussed, and there must be consequences.”
Trump told reporters that Putin had made an agreement that expired on Sunday. “It was Sunday to Sunday, and it opened up and he hit them hard last night,” he said at the White House. “He kept his word on that … we’ll take anything, because it’s really, really cold over there. But it was on Sunday, and he went from Sunday to Sunday.“
Asked if he was disappointed, Trump replied: “I want him to end the war.”
A second round of talks between Russia, Ukraine and the US to end the war are due to take place on Wednesday and Thursday in Abu Dhabi. A first round last month failed to yield a breakthrough.
Visiting Kyiv, the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, on Tuesday accused Moscow of trying to “create chaos for innocent civilians”. Zelenskyy was “absolutely ready to play ball” in talks this week, he said, questioning whether the Russians “are serious”. He called the overnight attack a “really bad signal”.
Rutte praised Trump as the only person capable of brokering a peaceful solution, almost four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion. “Be assured that Nato stands with Ukraine and is ready to do so for years to come. Your security is our security. Your peace is our peace,” he told Zelenskyy.
Kyiv residents reported loud explosions beginning at 1am on Tuesday in strikes that caused damage to five Kyiv districts and injured at least nine people. An air raid alert stayed in effect for more than five hours.
“Taking advantage of the coldest days of winter to terrorise people is more important to Russia than turning to diplomacy,” Zelenskyy said. He called on western partners to step up the supply of missiles for air defence systems in order to protect “normal life”.
“Without pressure on Russia, this war will not end. Now Moscow is choosing terror and escalation, and that’s why maximum pressure is needed,” he wrote on social media.
Among the infrastructure hit overnight were facilities to heat water for distribution to Ukrainian homes.
“Hundreds of thousands of families, including children, were deliberately left without heating during the harshest winter conditions, with temperatures dropping to -25C,” the Ukrainian energy minister, Denys Shmyhal, wrote on X.
Kyiv resident Natalia Hlobenko, 35, described how she rushed to cover her 11-year-old son on Tuesday before an explosion sprayed her apartment with broken glass. “Where is this ceasefire?” said a teary Hlobenko, bundled up in her windowless apartment.
Ukraine said the attack had damaged the Motherland monument, a Soviet-era second world war memorial. The 62-metre titanium statue of a woman holding a sword and a shield with a Ukrainian trident looms above the city and the Dnipro River, which has frozen over.
“It is both symbolic and cynical: the aggressor state strikes at a place of remembrance of the struggle against aggression in the 20th century, repeating its crimes in the 21st century,” the culture minister, Tetyana Berezhna, wrote on Facebook.
The Abu Dhabi talks take place amid reports that Ukraine has agreed a multi-tier plan with its allies for enforcing any ceasefire with Russia. The plan was discussed in December and January by Ukrainian, European and US officials.
According to the Financial Times, citing sources involved in the negotiations, a Russian violation of the truce would trigger a response within 24 hours. This would initially involve a diplomatic warning followed, if necessary, by Ukrainian army action to restore a ceasefire.
If hostilities continued after 72 hours, Ukraine and its allies would move to a second stage. It would involve a military response from the coalition of the willing, and include American forces.
Tuesday’s attacks took place across Ukraine. In Kyiv, 1,170 buildings were without power. In the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, the mayor, Ihor Terekhov, said energy infrastructure had been damaged. More than 800 buildings were without heat, as water was drained from radiator systems to stop them freezing in the bitter cold.
“The goal is obvious: to cause maximum destruction and leave the city without heat in severe cold,” Terekhov wrote on Telegram. The deputy prime minister, Oleksii Kuleba, said 110,000 properties in Kharkiv had been left without heating after the attack.
The public broadcaster Suspilne said Russian strikes had knocked out electricity in two towns in the Kharkiv region, Izium and Balakliia, and struck two apartment buildings in the northern city of Sumy.
Russian propagandists have been celebrating the Kremlin’s deliberate destruction of Ukraine’s energy grid in recent weeks – a war crime.
“We have driven Ukraine into the stone age. Terrifying cold is approaching. The energy system is extremely sensitive to imbalance,” the presenter Vladimir Solovyov told state TV. He predicted Kyiv would become “a giant cesspool”.
