Russia resumes strikes on freezing Ukrainian capital
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KYIV: Russia resumed strikes on Kyiv on Tuesday (Feb 3), Ukrainian officials said, as a brief truce announced by US President Donald Trump gave way to renewed attacks in freezing conditions.
Trump said on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to stop striking Kyiv and "various towns" during cold weather.
The Kremlin said the truce would last until Sunday but did not link it to the subzero temperatures. Ukraine said Moscow had kept up its strikes anyway.
Russia hit Kyiv "in the bitter cold with another massive strike" overnight, Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the city's military administration, said Tuesday on Telegram.
The emergency services said in a later post that three people in Kyiv had been wounded.
In the eastern city of Kharkiv, two people were wounded by Russian shelling, regional military chief Oleg Synegubov said.
The hours-long attack targeted energy infrastructure and aimed to "cause maximum destruction... and leave the city without heat during severe frost", Synegubov wrote on Telegram.
Authorities had to cut heating to more than 800 homes to prevent the wider network from freezing, he said, urging people to go to round-the-clock "invincibility points" around the city if they needed to warm up.
Overnight temperatures plunged to minus 17°C in Kyiv and sank as low as minus 23°C in Kharkiv.
NEW TALKS PLANNED
Russia's invasion of Ukraine will hit the four-year mark on Feb 24.
Washington has sought to craft a peace settlement between both sides, but the first round of trilateral talks held in Abu Dhabi last weekend failed to yield a breakthrough.
A second round is due to begin on Wednesday in the Emirati capital.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that recent "de-escalation" with Russia was helping build trust in negotiations, apparently referring to a break in attacks on energy facilities.
But territory remains a sticking point, and the warring sides have not yet shown willingness for compromise.
Russia wants full control of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, which Kyiv has ruled out, saying such a move would only embolden Moscow.
After failing in its aim of a lightning offensive to capture Kyiv and topple Ukraine's leadership in a matter of days in 2022, Russia has been bogged down in the face of Ukrainian defences and is now mounting a grinding advance that has come at huge human cost.
Moscow's troops accelerated their advance in Ukraine throughout January, capturing almost twice as much land as in the previous month, according to an AFP analysis.
Russia seized 481 sq km in January, analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War, which works with the Critical Threats Project, showed.
The January gains were up from 244 sq km in December 2025 and one of the largest advances during a winter month since Russia invaded four years ago.
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