Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attends a meeting with representatives of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe in Kyiv, Ukraine, 2 February 2026. Photo: EPA / Presidential Press Service
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that the work of the country’s negotiators being sent to attend peace talks in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday would be “adjusted” in view of a series of devastating Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure carried out in recent days.
In a post on his Telegram channel, Zelensky said that coordinated Russian attacks in the past 24 hours had damaged energy facilities in the Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Vinnytsia, Odesa and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Zelensky drew attention to the severe weather across the country with some areas including Kyiv seeing lows of -20C, adding that he believed Russia was deliberately striking energy infrastructure now in light of this. A week-long moratorium on strikes against energy infrastructure was announced by US President Donald Trump on Thursday, though Russia said on Friday that it only intended to comply with it until Sunday.
Zelensky went on to accuse the Russian side of stockpiling missiles over the weekend for a larger bombardment on the coldest day of the year, suggesting that their willingness to agree to the moratorium had been carried out in bad faith to allow for time to prepare for the attack.
With trilateral negotiations set to continue on Wednesday, Zelensky said that work of the Ukrainian delegation would “be adjusted accordingly” following the strikes, adding that the Russian side did “not take diplomacy seriously”.
According to the latest data, more than 1,100 apartment buildings in Kiev and over 850 houses in the Kharkiv region remain without heating.
