Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s energy sector on Monday night – as temperatures dropped to -20C (-4F) – were “barbaric” and “particularly depraved”, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said.
He made the comments after speaking to US President Donald Trump hours after Russia hit power plants and critical infrastructure in the capital, Kyiv, and elsewhere.
It comes at the end of a week-long pause that Trump had asked Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to observe as a fierce cold swept Ukraine.
Trump told reporters that Putin had “kept his word” and that he would like him to end the war. US envoys are meeting Ukrainian and Russian negotiators in Abu Dhabi to discuss details of a peace plan.
Asked by reporters on whether he was disappointed with Russia’s renewed attacks, Trump said, “it [the agreement] was on Sunday, and he [Putin] went from Sunday to Sunday.
“It’s a lot, you know, one week, we’ll take anything, because it’s really, really cold over there.”
The US president has been leading efforts to end the war, but his Russian counterpart has refused calls for a ceasefire.
The damage from Russia’s latest attacks has been extensive, with more than 1,000 tower blocks in Kyiv without heating and a power plant in the eastern city of Kharkiv beyond repair.
Residents have been forced to spend the night sheltering in metro stations, with some pitching tents on the platforms to protect them from the freezing cold.
The authorities have been setting up centres around Kyiv for the city’s inhabitants to go to warm up. They are also importing more generators in order to cope with longer blackout periods as engineers try to repair damage.
