Russia Strikes Ukraine's Kharkiv & Kyiv, Overshadowing Peace Talks

Russia’s latest mass missile and drone assault on Saturday on Ukraine’s energy system landed at a sensitive diplomatic moment, striking Kyiv and Kharkiv just as U.S.-brokered peace talks entered a second day in Abu Dhabi. Ukrainian officials framed the timing as deliberate, arguing that Moscow used force to shape negotiations rather than advance them.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said another night of “Russian terror” underscored the hollowness of peace efforts, as Moscow launched a “brutal” missile and drone attack on Kyiv and Kharkiv while delegations met in Abu Dhabi. He said the strikes, ordered “cynically” by President Vladimir Putin, “hit not only our people, but also the negotiation table,” again targeting energy infrastructure and civilian areas and causing deaths, injuries, and widespread damage.

The strikes killed at least one person in Kyiv and injured more than 20 across the two cities, according to local authorities.

A Harsh Winter for Ukraine

Ukrainian air defenses faced one of the heaviest combined assaults of the winter. Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 375 drones and 21 missiles overnight, including Iskander ballistic missiles, Kh-22 and Kh-32 cruise missiles, and two Zircon hypersonic missiles, alongside Shahed drones. Explosions rocked Kyiv through the night as air defense systems intercepted incoming targets, lighting the sky with repeated flashes. Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said strikes were recorded in at least four districts, including damage to a medical facility.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko confirmed that one person was killed and four injured, three of whom were hospitalized. Nearly 6,000 buildings in the capital were left without heating as temperatures fell to around minus 10 to minus 12 degrees Celsius. Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said more than 800,000 people in Kyiv and another 400,000 in Chernihiv region were left without power nationwide. President Volodymyr Zelensky stated plainly that “the main target of the Russians was the energy infrastructure.”

Territorial Deadlock Persists

In Kharkiv, located roughly 30 km from the Russian border, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said 25 drones struck multiple districts, injuring between 11 and 19 people, including a child. A maternity hospital, medical facilities, and a dormitory for displaced people were damaged. The assault echoed previous large-scale strikes, including one on Oct. 3 that targeted energy and gas facilities across Poltava, Sumy, Dnipro, Odesa, Chernihiv, Kyiv, and Kharkiv using Shahed drones, Kh-59 and Kh-69 cruise missiles, and Iskander systems.

The battlefield escalation contrasted sharply with diplomatic statements emerging from Abu Dhabi. Delegations from Russia, Ukraine, and the United States are holding their first trilateral talks since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Rustem Umerov, leading Ukraine’s delegation, said discussions focused on “the parameters for ending Russia’s war and the further logic of the negotiation process aimed at advancing toward a dignified and lasting peace.”

Yet sources familiar with the talks say limited progress was made due to unresolved territorial disputes.

“Peace Will Not Happen Tomorrow”

Russia currently occupies roughly 20% of Ukrainian territory, including parts of the Donbas and Crimea, which it illegally annexed in 2014. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine cede additional territory, a position Kyiv has rejected. Speaking earlier in Davos, Zelensky said, “It’s all about the land. This is the issue which is not solved yet.”

The strain on Ukraine’s air defenses has become a parallel issue. On Jan. 22, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned that winter attacks even on smaller cities were testing Ukraine’s resilience. “Peace talks are fantastic, but peace will not happen tomorrow,” he said. “Ukrainians need these interceptors tomorrow.”

With temperatures near minus 20 degrees Celsius in parts of the country, repeated strikes on substations and power plants have left millions vulnerable as diplomacy struggles to keep pace with the war’s material realities.