On Jan. 24, Russia made a major overnight attack on the Ukrainian capital killing at least one person and injuring four others, according to local authorities. The explosions were initially heard at approximately 1:20 a.m. local time, Kyiv Independent reporters on site were reporting, and explosions went on all night, including the interception of a ballistic missile. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia fired 396 aerial weapons in total, 21 missiles, and 375 drones. These were the hypersonic Tsirkon missiles, the Iskander ballistic missiles and the Kh-22 and the Kh-32 cruise missiles. The attacks were part of the ongoing Russian aggression of the energy infrastructure in Ukraine, after other mass attacks on Jan. 9 and Jan. 20 which further escalated the energy crisis in Russia in the winter.
The Kyiv left bank, which is on the east side of the river Dnipro, was experiencing a particularly dire heating situation, according to Vitaliy Zaichenko, the CEO of UkrEnergo, which was now spreading into the right bank. He claimed that on January 24, 80 percent of Ukraine would experience emergency unscheduled power outage.
The municipal government of Kyiv declared that metro service was suspended on a part of the line along the Dnipro between Pechersk and Darnytsia because of the destruction of the fencing, although other lines were still in operation.
A Shahed drone hit one of the factories, Roshen, owned by the former President Petro Poroshenko in Kyiv, Holosiivsky district. Emergency services reported that one person had been killed and three more were injured in the attack. Even after the damage and the death, the factory was reopened not much later than 11 a.m., Hennadiy, a local resident, told the News that he heard the strike but it was not until he happened to pass the location later that morning that he realized where it had struck.
The Desnyanski, Dniprovskyi and Solomyanski districts were also reported to be damaged further. Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported that approximately 6,000 of the approximately 12,000 apartment buildings in Kyiv remained without heating, after that figure had momentarily decreased to around 2,000 the day before.
Another attack by Russian masses in Kharkiv hurt 27 people, and resulted in fires and destruction. According to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, 134 rescuers and 34 fire-rescuers were present. In Ukraine, Internal Affairs Ministry said 40 people were injured, 60 residential buildings destroyed, and 80 civilian vehicles.
The most recent strikes were made shortly after the trilateral peace negotiations between Kyiv, Moscow, and Washington. Russian strikes on energy plants have left millions of people without heat, electricity or water in what has been the coldest winter since the full-scale invasion in 2022.