(LONDON) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged “maximum pressure” on Russia from the international community after Moscow fired hundreds of drones and missiles into Ukraine overnight into Tuesday morning, in a major attack that Zelenskyy said focused on the country’s critical energy infrastructure.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 71 missiles and 450 drones into the country overnight, of which 38 missiles and 412 drones were shot down or suppressed. Twenty-seven missiles and 31 drones impacted across 27 locations, the air force said.
The strike was the largest reported by the Ukrainian air force of the year so far, and the largest overall number of munitions launched in a single night since the night of Dec. 27.
The number of missiles fired on Monday night was also unusually high, and the largest total for a single night since April 24, according to air force data analyzed by ABC News.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a post to Telegram that its forces “carried out a massive strike” on “Ukraine’s military-industrial complex and energy facilities used in their interests, as well as places of storage and assembly of long-range unmanned aerial vehicles.”
Zelenskyy said in a post to Telegram that the regions of Sumy, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Dnipro, Odesa and Vinnytsia were attacked, with energy infrastructure and residential buildings among those hit. At least nine people have so far been confirmed injured, the president said.
“Taking advantage of the coldest days of winter to terrorize people is more important to Russia than resorting to diplomacy,” Zelenskyy said. “This clearly demonstrates what is needed from partners and what can help. Timely delivery of missiles for air defense systems and protection of normal life is our priority. Without pressure on Russia, there will be no end to this war.”
“Right now, Moscow is choosing terror and escalation, and that is why maximum pressure is needed,” Zelenskyy added.
Ukrainian Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal said that thermal power plants powering parts of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro were among the targets of the strike. “The targets were not military. They were exclusively civilian,” Shmyhal wrote on Telegram.
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy firm, said Russian strikes inflicted “significant” damage on its power plants, in what it said was “the ninth massive attack on the company’s thermal power stations since October 2025.”
Emergency power outages were implemented in Kyiv’s Dnieper and Darnytsia districts, DTEK said. Energy infrastructure was also damaged in Odesa, DTEK added.
Ukraine’s state energy company Ukrenergo reported “a significant number of power outages in Kyiv, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Vinnytsia and Odesa regions,” which it attributed to the “massive” overnight attack. “There are also damaged energy facilities in several regions,” Ukrenergo wrote on Telegram.
Moscow’s latest strikes came after the expiry of a brief pause in attacks on energy infrastructure agreed to by both Moscow and Kyiv following a request from U.S. President Donald Trump. Russia said that the pause expired on Sunday.
This winter — the fourth of Russia’s full-scale invasion — has seen Moscow intensively target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, wreaking havoc on the national grid and precipitating rolling and extended blackouts for millions of Ukrainians.
Monday night saw temperatures drop as low as -14 F in some parts of Ukraine.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha suggested on X that Russian President Vladimir Putin “waited for the temperatures to drop and stockpiled drones and missiles to continue his genocidal attacks against the Ukrainian people.”
Zelenskyy later made the same allegation in a post to Telegram. “The Russian army took advantage of the American proposal to pause the strikes for a short period, not to support diplomacy, but simply to stockpile missiles and wait for the coldest days of the year,” he said.
Russia launched its latest major strike despite an upcoming round of trilateral peace talks with U.S. and Ukrainian representatives in the United Arab Emirates, which are due to resume on Wednesday and continue into Thursday.
“Every such strike by Russia confirms that the attitude in Moscow has not changed: they are still counting on war and the destruction of Ukraine, and they do not take diplomacy seriously,” Zelenskyy said. “The work of our negotiating team will be adjusted accordingly.”
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte visited Kyiv on Tuesday to meet with Zelenskyy and address the Ukrainian parliament. Rutte told Ukrainian representatives that “important progress has been made” in trilateral U.S.-Ukraine-Russia talks.
“But Russia continues to attack, as it did last night,” Rutte added. “This demonstrates their lack of seriousness about peace.”
Monday night’s attack prompted the scrambling of NATO fighter jets in Poland, which borders Ukraine to the country’s west. Poland’s Armed Forces Operational Command Operational Command said that no violation of the nation’s airspace was recorded.
German fighter jets and Dutch anti-air defense systems were among the assets put on alert, the command said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its forces downed at least 10 Ukrainian drones overnight.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces confirmed in a post to Telegram that it struck several targets on Russian-held territory overnight into Tuesday.
Ukraine’s targets included a drone training and production site in occupied Zaporizhzhia, a concentration of Russian forces in the western Russian border region of Belgorod and an electronic warfare site in occupied Donetsk, the General Staff said.
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