Russia hits Ukraine after the suspension announced by Trump, plunging thousands of people into icy darkness on the eve of talks.

Kiev— It was another frigid morning without electricity in Dorohozhychi, a neighborhood in the northwest of the Ukrainian capital, kyiv.

Between Monday night and Tuesday morning, Russian drones and missiles attacked energy facilities in kyiv as temperatures dropped to -7 degrees Fahrenheit.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was the first Russian attack on kyiv’s energy infrastructure since President Trump announced during a Cabinet meeting on January 29 that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, had agreed to suspend attacks on Ukrainian towns and cities for a week.

The five-day respite, according to engineers working Tuesday morning at a damaged electrical substation in Dorohozhychi, was not enough.

“As there is currently severe frost outside, the load on power grids and equipment is increasing and they are wearing out,” Maxim Yevchuk, an engineer at DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private electricity provider, told News themezone.

Yevchuk and his team managed to repair the substation in Dorohozhychi, but expected to face similar problems in other kyiv neighborhoods throughout the day. The underlying problems behind the long blackouts, they said, will persist regardless of the intensity of Russian attacks.

“Almost every day we have an emergency like this,” Yevchuk said, explaining that the combination of Russian attacks and extreme weather have overwhelmed the country’s power grid.

Because of the overload, he said, small technical glitches “now cause power outages in entire neighborhoods.”

Energy truce ends on eve of peace talks

Discussion of an “energy truce” – in which both sides would stop attacks on the other side’s electrical infrastructure – emerged after the first trilateral peace negotiations held between Ukrainian, Russian and US officials in Abu Dhabi in late January.

President Trump announced during a post-summit Cabinet meeting that he had asked Putin to suspend attacks on energy infrastructure and that the Russian leader had agreed.

“Our teams discussed this in the United Arab Emirates,” Zelenskyy said in a social media post a few weeks ago. We hope that the agreements are implemented. “De-escalation measures contribute to real progress towards the end of the war.”

Now, as Ukrainian, Russian and American officials plan to return to Abu Dhabi for a second round of trilateral talks, currently scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, the mood has changed.

Russia launched 450 drones and more than 60 missiles into Ukraine overnight on Tuesday, according to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, who said the attacks had left 1,170 apartment buildings in kyiv without heat.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attacks showed that “attitudes in Moscow have not changed: they continue to bet on war and the destruction of Ukraine, and do not take diplomacy seriously. The work of our negotiating team will be adjusted accordingly.”

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte echoed Zelenskyy’s sentiments during a visit to kyiv on Tuesday, telling members of Ukraine’s parliament that “Russian attacks like those last night do not indicate seriousness about peace.”

There was no immediate response from Moscow to the criticism.

Both Rutte and Zelenskyy emphasized Ukraine’s ability to withstand the harshest months of the war.

“Putin has long thought that he might wait for us, that Ukraine was weak, that his supporters would tire, that our will would falter,” Rutte said in his speech. “He made a grave mistake. Ukraine is strong and our support is unwavering.”

As the energy crisis deepens, public opinion polls in Ukraine appear to support Rutte’s assessment of the nation’s resolve. A survey conducted by the kyiv International Institute of Sociology from January 23 to 29 found that 65% of Ukrainian respondents said they were “willing to endure war for as long as necessary” to secure what they perceive as a just peace.

According to DTEK, Monday night’s attack was the worst so far in 2026 and the 12th major attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in the last four months alone.

Yevchuk said that for his crew, the job “doesn’t change from attack to attack.”

Every day they focus on the same task: “We continue to do everything necessary to ensure that our customers receive the most energy possible.”