Russia launches devastating strikes on Ukraine’s energy facilities in brutal onslaught | World | News

Vladimir Putin today staged ferocious new strikes to cripple power and heating supplies in Ukraine amid the blistering winter cold.

The appalling onslaught on an already substantially demolished system cast a pall over historic Russian-Ukrainian peace talks involving the US were underway in Abu Dhabi.

The crude aim was to force Volodymyr Zelensky to cede land to Putin by weaponising the cold and freezing his people into despair and surrender.

Putin “launched one of its heaviest assaults in months – just hours after Ukrainian, Russian, and US negotiators convened in Abu Dhabi for peace talks,” reported the Kyiv Post.

The latest death and destruction hit Kyiv and the surrounding region with Russia unleashing combined hypersonic and ballistic missiles as well as drone strikes in bitter -12C cold.

There were hits on key substations that distribute electricity from Ukraine’s functioning nuclear power stations.

Brutal Putin deliberately inflicted his latest cruelty the day after Maxim Timchenko – CEO of Ukraine’s top private energy firm – warned the situation was already “close to a humanitarian catastrophe”.

Some 6,000 buildings were left without heating.

Russian channel War Gonzo openly boasted: “The capital of Ukraine was left without electricity, water, and heating after a powerful nighttime attack….the strike on energy infrastructure facilities was carried out using supersonic Zircon missiles, Iskander ballistic missiles, and [Shahed] attack drones.”

Residents were forced to huddle in tents inside their own flats or in underground metro stations amid the terror attacks on civilian infrastructure.

At least one person was killed in Kyiv in the overnight horror.

Hit, too, was the famous cake and confectionary plant Roshen, owned by Ukraine’s ex-president Petro Poroshenko.

In second city Kharkiv, nearly two dozen people were injured in strikes which targeted a maternity clinic, a hospital and, a shelter people left homeless by previous Russian attacks amid blistering -15C cold.

“Apartments were burning. Houses were burning,” said Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov.

“There are wounded. There are those who lost their homes this night.

“This was a deliberate strike on a peaceful city – on people who simply live, work, and raise children.

“All services are working on the ground – rescuers, doctors, police, utility workers, volunteers.

“The city is holding on. The city is helping. The city is not abandoning its people.”

Other cities were also hit as Russia sought to freeze Ukraine into submission.

In Chernihiv, there was a complete blackout, said reports.

The cynical Putin strikes came half way through the initial round of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi involving Russia, Ukraine and the US.

“They are discussing the parameters for ending the war,” said Zelensky.

“It is still too early to draw conclusions.”