KYIV: The Ukraine capital’s mayor has called upon residents to temporarily leave the city as sub-zero temperatures are expected to fall even lower.

A massive missile and drone attack on Kyiv killed four and ripped open apartment blocks on Friday.

The barrage came hours after Moscow rejected a plan by Kyiv and its Western allies to deploy peacekeeping forces to Ukraine should a ceasefire be reached.

Journalists in Kyiv saw residents running for shelter late on Thursday night as the air raid siren echoed, and heard Russian drones exploding into residential buildings and missiles whistling over the capital.

“Moscow is trying to use cold weather as a tool of terror,” Ukrainian Presi­dent Volodymyr Zelensky said at a meeting in Kyiv with British Defence Secretary John Healy.

He said 20 residential buildings in Kyiv had been damaged, including the Qatari embassy, in one of the largest attacks on the capital for months.

Qatar expressed “deep regret” over the embassy hit and said that none of its staff there had been harmed.

‘Very difficult’ situation’

The Russian barrage left around half of all apartment blocks in the capital, some 6,000 buildings, without heating, Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said.

Temperatures are set to fall to -15C on Saturday.

Officials said they were hopeful some heating could be restored on Friday night. “In some areas where the damage is more complex, additional time is needed,” Ukraine’s Restoration Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said.

Klitschko said the situation was “very difficult” and called on “residents of the capital who have the opportunity to temporarily leave the city for places with alternative sources of power and heat to do so.”

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2026