Feb 3 (Reuters) – Russian forces attacked Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv, its second largest city of Kharkiv and other centres early on Tuesday, officials said, triggering fires and dealing new blows to energy infrastructure.
The strikes injured four people, officials in the two largest cities said. They came on the eve of the next planned three-sided talks on resolving the nearly four-year-old war in the United Arab Emirates.
In Kyiv, as nighttime temperatures dipped close to -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees F), Reuters witnesses reported loud explosions after midnight, saying both missiles and drones were being deployed.
The strikes caused damage in five districts, hitting three apartment blocks and a building housing a kindergarten, Tymur Tkachenko, head of the city’s military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app.
Flames consumed an apartment on the upper floors of a Kyiv block in videos posted on social media. An air raid alert stayed in effect for more than five hours.
A series of massive attacks on the capital since New Year’s Day have knocked out power and heating to hundreds of apartment blocks and emergency crews were still trying to restore heating systems on Monday.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said the attacks targeted energy infrastructure and called for tough decisions to keep heating systems from freezing. Coolant needed to be drained from 820 apartment buildings supplied by a single thermal plant.
“The goal is obvious: to cause maximum destruction and leave the city without heat in severe cold,” Terekhov wrote on Telegram.
Public broadcaster Suspilne also said Russian strikes had knocked out power in two towns in the Kharkiv region, Izium and Balakliia, and struck two apartment buildings in the northern city of Sumy.
The attacks also coincided with talk of a moratorium on strikes on energy infrastructure adopted by both Russia and Ukraine at the request of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Russia said the ceasefire ended on Sunday, while Ukraine said it was to continue for a week from January 30.
On Monday, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia had not targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure with missile or drone strikes in the previous 24 hours, but steady Russian shelling hit energy facilities near the front line.
(Reporting by Gleb Garanich and Valentyn Ogirenko; Writing by Ron Popeski; Editing by Stephen Coates, Michael Perry and Clarence Fernandez)
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