Almost half of Kyiv without heat, power

An overnight Russian bombardment left thousands of residential buildings in Kyiv without heating and water in -14C temperatures yesterday, when the Ukrainian capital was already scrambling to restore vital utilities destroyed in earlier attacks.

The barrage of hundreds of drones and missiles, which targeted energy facilities across Ukraine, killed at least one 50-year-old man near Kyiv.

AFP journalists heard air raid sirens and explosions as Ukrainian air defence systems responded to the drones and missiles. Sheltering in a metro station, Marina Sergienko, a 51-year-old accountant, said she thought the repeated Russian strikes, which have left millions in the cold and dark over recent weeks, had a clear purpose.

“To wear down the people, push things to some critical point so there’s no strength left, to break our resistance,” she told AFP, taking cover alongside dozens of other Kyiv residents bundled in hats and coats. Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga lashed out at Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying: “War criminal Putin continues to wage a genocidal war against women, children and elderly.”