Ukraine braced for more attacks on its energy infrastructure this week as winter temperatures plunged to -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit) and tried to optimize its defenses against Russian drones.
On Thursday, Ukraine’s Energy Minister, Denial will happenUkrainians are warned to brace for more power blackouts in the coming days as Russian airstrikes continue.
Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko said Russia had attacked energy infrastructure 217 times this year. Shmyal said 200 emergency workers were working to restore power to 1,100 buildings in Kyiv alone.
Russia has been targeting Ukrainian power stations, gas pipelines and power cables since mid-January, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without heat or electricity in various locations.
On January 29, US President Donald Trump told a Cabinet meeting that Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to halt strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for a week, which the Kremlin confirmed.
“I personally asked President Putin not to fire in Kiev and various cities for a week, and he agreed to do so,” Trump said.
It was unclear exactly when these conversations took place, but Russia revealed one of them on Tuesday this week Biggest strike ever On energy infrastructure in Kyiv and Kharkiv, 71 missiles and 450 drones are deployed.
Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said Ukraine was only able to shoot down 38 missiles because so many of them were ballistic.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claims it is targeting unmanned aerial vehicles, defense enterprises and storage sites for their energy supplies.
The strike coincided with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s visit to Kiev and came a day earlier. Tripartite Talks Russia, Ukraine and the United States resumed in Abu Dhabi.
“Last night, in our opinion, the Russians broke their promise,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Rutte’s news conference. “So, either Russia now thinks that a week is less than four days instead of seven, or they really are betting on war.”
The strike also came as Kiev managed to reduce the number of apartment buildings without heat 3,500 Three days ago, up to about 500.
At least two people, aged 18, were killed while walking on a street in Zaporizhia, southeastern Ukraine.
Even on relatively calm days, civilians die in Russia. On Sunday, February 1, Russia killed dozens of miners when a drone struck a bus carrying them to work in Ukraine’s central Dnipro region.
Advanced drone maneuvers
In the days in which it observed a moratorium on energy-related strikes, Russia instead focused on Ukrainian logistics and sought to extend the reach of its drones.
Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, a technology and drone warfare adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, reported that Russian drones were striking Ukrainian trucks 50 km (31 mi) from the front line. He also said Russia had adapted its Geran drone to act “as a carrier” for smaller, first-person view (FPV) drones, doubling the two relatively inexpensive systems for greater range.
Ukrainian broadcaster Suspil said Russia had begun the new tactics in mid-January.
Ukraine’s air force has managed to destroy about 90 percent of Russia’s long-range drones and a high proportion of its missiles — nearly 22,000 targets in January alone.
Zelensky has recently called for better results, however, and one of the Ukrainian responses to Russian tactics is a new, short-range “small air defense” force that uses drones to counter drones.
“Hundreds of UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) crews have already been transferred to the operational control of the Air Force Group – they are working in the first and second volumes,” Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Sirsky wrote on Wednesday this week.
Ukraine’s second response was to disable Russian Starlink terminals, which Russia uses extensively on the battlefield and has recently begun mounting on UAVs.
Starlink uses low-orbit satellites and is impervious to jamming, allowing Russia to change drone targets mid-air.
Ukraine’s newly installed defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, has drawn up a “white list” of Starlink terminals used by Ukraine’s armed forces and sent it to Starlink owner Elon Musk, ordering it to continue shutting down all others in the Ukraine theater.
“Soon, only verified and registered terminals will work in Ukraine. Everything else will be disconnected,” Fedorov wrote on Telegram.
“The steps we have taken to stop unauthorized use of Starlink by Russia appear to have worked. Let us know if anything else needs to be done,” Musk wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
Fedorov and Beskrestnov are asking Ukrainian soldiers and civilians to whitelist any Starlink terminals they have privately acquired.
More clearances on the way
On the day of the massive Russian strike, Zelensky called on the US to pass a bill imposing more sanctions on buyers of Russian oil. China is the largest, followed by India.
Earlier in the day, Trump said that India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, Dr Agreed to stop buying Russian oil. “He agreed to stop buying Russian oil and buy more from the United States and possibly Venezuela. This will help end the war in Ukraine,” he wrote on his social media platform.
A Russian government source told Reuters that a 30 percent drop in oil sales to India and fewer sales to other customers could widen Moscow’s planned budget deficit to 3.5 percent or 4.4 percent of GDP this year from 1.6 percent. Government data released on Wednesday showed the Kremlin’s energy revenue was $5.13bn in January, half the level of January 2025.
Zelenskiy discussed the 20th sanctions package under preparation with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “We can already see what is happening to the Russian economy and what can happen if pressure is effectively applied,” he said.
The fact that Russia has made little progress in its ground war over the past three years has been documented repeatedly, most recently by CSIS report. Despite this, its top officials last week insisted on peace terms that would force Ukraine to relinquish control of four of its southeastern regions, reduce its armed forces and agree not to join NATO – which Ukraine has refused.
Started again speaks Only 157 prisoners of war were exchanged in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday and Thursday.
