On the night of February 3, Russian forces carried out a combined drone and missile strike on Ukraine. Kyiv was among the targets, according to the head of the city’s military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, and the capital’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko.
According to Tkachenko, high-rise residential buildings were damaged in the Darnytskyi, Dniprovskyi, and Shevchenkivskyi districts. Non-residential buildings, a gas station, and vehicles were also hit. The State Emergency Service reported three people injured.
Russia is deliberately targeting Kharkiv’s energy infrastructure, the city’s mayor, Ihor Terekhov, said. “The objective is obvious: to inflict maximum damage and leave the city without heat in severe frost,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.
According to Terekhov, the authorities decided to drain water from the heating systems of 820 buildings connected to one of the city’s largest combined heat and power plants.
“I understand how hard this is in twenty-degree frost. But the enemy’s unprecedented attack on critical infrastructure leaves no alternative. Our specialists see no other option. As a result, all 101 points of invincibility in the city will operate around the clock—there, residents can warm up, have hot drinks, and charge their devices. If necessary, we will promptly deploy additional heating points,” the mayor said.
The head of the Kharkiv regional administration, Oleh Syniehubov, said that two people were injured in the strike on the city—men aged 27 and 58.
A large-scale drone and missile attack also affected the Odesa region, according to the head of the regional military administration, Oleh Kiper. He said the strikes hit energy and civilian infrastructure facilities. More than 50,000 people were left without electricity. Three residential buildings, as well as warehouse and administrative facilities, were damaged.
On February 2, Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy reported a resumption of Russian strikes on the country’s energy infrastructure. As a result of the attacks, consumers in the Kharkiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, and Cherkasy regions were left without power. Shortly afterward, however, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that over the past 24 hours no “targeted strikes” on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure had been recorded.
The Kremlin, for its part, declined to comment on the duration of the energy truce, which had previously been said to run until February 1. “I have nothing to add to what I told you during the previous conference call, where we spoke specifically about February 1,” said Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary to Russia’s president.