Mayor: Kyiv nears humanitarian catastrophe as Russian strikes cut heat

Russia’s latest wave of overnight strikes on Ukraine has pushed Kyiv toward what the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, described as a looming humanitarian catastrophe, after power, heating and water supplies were cut to roughly half of the capital.

Klitschko said the attacks forced authorities to shut down and drain Kyiv’s centralised heating and water systems to prevent pipes from freezing and bursting, leaving thousands of apartment buildings without heat as temperatures dropped to minus 18 degrees Celsius. He urged residents to leave the city if possible, noting that around 600,000 people have already fled Kyiv this month.

According to the mayor, Russian forces launched a large-scale assault involving hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles, reversing recent repairs to the energy grid and again striking a thermal power plant in the capital. Kyiv had already been struggling with rolling blackouts and limited heating since an earlier attack in early January.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week that Ukraine’s Western-supplied air defence systems had run low on ammunition because of reduced allied support, allowing Russian forces to overwhelm defences with mass missile and drone attacks. Other major cities, including Kharkiv and Odesa, were also left without heating and electricity after strikes on energy infrastructure.

The crisis has triggered public friction between Zelenskyy and Klitschko, with the president criticising the capital’s preparedness and the mayor accusing Zelensky of fueling political conflict during wartime. Klitschko said responsibility for electricity generation and air defence lies with the central government.

Experts warned that prolonged disruption to water and sewage systems could lead to disease outbreaks and a broader shutdown of the city. Opposition lawmakers also criticised both national and city authorities for failing to prepare adequately and called for urgent external assistance and decentralised power solutions.

Despite the conditions, residents have sought makeshift ways to cope, gathering in heated shelters, railcarriages powered by generators, and communal spaces as businesses and hospitals struggle to operate amid prolonged outages.

By Tamilla Hasanova