Russian forces attacked Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, its second-largest city of Kharkiv and other centers early yesterday, 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 minus-20°C, witnesses reported loud explosions after midnight, saying both missiles and drones were being deployed.
Photo: Reuters
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 social media.
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 social media.
Public broadcaster Suspilne said that 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 US President Donald Trump.
Russia said the ceasefire ended on Sunday, while Ukraine said it was to continue for a week from Friday last week.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday said that 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.
Gaza is rapidly running out of its limited fuel supply and stocks of food staples might become tight, officials said, after Israel blocked the entry of fuel and goods into the war-shattered territory, citing fighting with Iran. The Israeli military closed all Gaza border crossings on Saturday after announcing airstrikes on Iran carried out jointly with the US. Israeli authorities late on Monday night said that they would reopen the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel to Gaza yesterday, for “gradual entry of humanitarian aid” into the strip, without saying how much. Israeli authorities previously said the crossings could not be operated safely during
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
RSS