KYIV: An overnight Russian bombardment on Kyiv left thousands of residential buildings and parliament without heating and water in -14C temperatures on Tuesday, just as the Ukrainian capital was 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.

More than half a million people have evacuated from the capital this month, when Russia unleashed its strongest attack on the capital’s energy infrastructure in the war, the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said. Journalists in the capital heard air raid sirens and explosions as Ukrainian air defence systems responded to the drones and missiles.

Sheltering in a metro station in the centre of Kyiv, 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.

Greenland row diverting focus from Ukraine war, says Zelensky

“To wear down the people, push things to some critical point so there’s no strength left, to break our resistance,” she said, 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.” He said Russian forces had targeted energy infrastructure overnight in at least seven regions, and urged Ukraine’s allies to bolster its air defence systems.

Zelensky worried

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday he was worried US President Donald Trump’s push to take Greenland could be diverting focus away from Russia’s invasion, now approaching its four-year mark.

Trump last week threatened European nations with tariffs of up to 25 per cent for opposing his plans to acquire Greenland, drawing anger from Brussels and putting the Nato military alliance under unprecedented strain.

“I’m worried about any loss of focus during a full-scale war,” Zelensky told reporters.

He added that the dispute surrounding Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory, and the Ukraine war should not be seen as “interchangeable”. “We have a full-scale war, we have a specific aggressor, and we have specific victims,” he said.

He also called for Washington to engage in diplomacy with Europe. “I want very, very much America to hear Europe, to truly hear it in the format of diplomacy. I think that’s what will happen and I strongly believe there won’t be any major threats,” he said.

Zelensky suggested he would skip the ongoing World Economic Forum in Switzerland to deal with the aftermath of the strike. But he kept open the possibility of going to the gathering of world leaders in the ski resort of Davos if agreements with the United States on possible post-war economic and security support were ready to be signed.

Published in Dawn, January 21st, 2026