Ukrainian drone attacks struck Russian-controlled infrastructure in southern Ukraine, disconnecting hundreds of thousands of people. The Ukrainian authorities called the attack a way to weaponize winter, and compared it to the previous Russian attacks on the Ukrainian power grid. Russia did not stop its attacks overnight, and Ukrainian officials alleged that two people had been killed. The local Kremlin-appointed governor claimed that over 200,000 households in the southern region of Ukraine, covered by Russian control, were out of power. In a Telegram, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy indicated that the restoration of the energy system in the country is not easy to achieve, but it is being taken into account to recover the damage within the shortest possible period.
Zelenskyy also reported that there were night attacks on a number of areas, such as Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi and Odesa, leaving two people dead. According to Ukrainian authorities, Russia conducted a vigorous strike campaign in the last seven days and deployed over 1,300 attack drones, 1,050 guided aerial bombs and 29 different types of missiles. Nonetheless, even though there is still fighting, there are ongoing diplomatic talks between the United States, Ukraine and Russia in a bid to agree on a peace deal.
Zelenskyy has constantly repeated that Russia is not really serious about the peace process. On Sunday, he threatened that in case of a deliberate application of diplomacy stalling in Moscow by the international community, it must respond with even more support in Ukraine and a heavier blow on Russia. This has been, however, a different evaluation given by U.S. President Donald Trump.
In an interview, Trump claimed to believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin was willing to strike a deal, but said that Ukraine was not as willing to accept peace. The resistance of Ukraine, according to Trump, was one of the primary reasons that slackened the process of the war termination. Trump, when questioned about the fact that U.S. intervention was still yet to yield any breakthrough, cited Zelenskyy, claiming that the Ukrainian president was struggling to get to an agreement. However, Trump suggested that he could have a meeting with Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the next World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, meaning that diplomatic interaction is still open despite the ongoing war.