Russian forces have launched a fresh wave of attacks across Ukraine, killing at least two people and causing significant damage to the country's already beleaguered energy infrastructure. The assaults, which included over 200 drones, struck multiple regions overnight into Sunday, marking day 1,426 of the full-scale invasion.
Widespread Attacks Target Civilian Areas
According to Ukrainian officials, more than 30 Russian strikes were recorded across 15 locations. The attacks hit the regions of Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi, and Odesa. In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, mayor Ihor Terekhov confirmed one person was killed. The emergency services in the Dnipropetrovsk region reported that at least six people were wounded.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated on Telegram that repairing the energy system remained a major challenge. "We are doing everything we can to restore everything as quickly as possible," he said. In the Odesa region, Russian targeting of energy infrastructure caused a fire, which was later extinguished.
Energy War Escalates with Blackouts in Occupied South
The conflict's brutal tit-for-tat on energy infrastructure continued, with Ukrainian drone strikes damaging power networks in Russian-occupied parts of southern Ukraine. Kremlin-installed authorities reported that this left hundreds of thousands of people without electricity.
Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russian-appointed governor in Zaporizhzhia, claimed on Telegram that over 200,000 households in the occupied part of the region had no power on Sunday. He said nearly 400 settlements had their supply cut due to the damage.
In a related development, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced that Ukrainian crews had begun repair works on a backup power line to the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. This work is being conducted under a ceasefire brokered by the UN watchdog. The plant's fate remains a central issue in ongoing US-brokered peace talks.
Diplomatic Moves and Stark Warnings
As the fighting raged, diplomatic efforts continued. Ukraine's top negotiator, Rustem Umerov, said talks with US officials on ending the war would proceed at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week. He revealed that recent discussions in Florida had focused on security guarantees and a postwar recovery plan for Ukraine.
In a stark warning, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez commented on the broader geopolitical context. In an interview with La Vanguardia, he stated that any US military action against Greenland, a territory of Denmark, would "make Vladimir Putin the happiest man in the world." Sánchez argued such a move would damage NATO and, in his view, legitimise Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
