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Since the start of its war on Ukraine in 2022, Russia has consistently targeted Ukrainian energy facilities.
At least four people have been killed and 10 others were injured in Russian air attacks on Ukraine’s Chernihiv region that left hundreds of thousands without power and many without water, according to Ukrainian authorities.
The regional capital, also called Chernihiv, and the northern part of the province lost all electricity supply after strikes on power facilities, the Energy Ministry said on Tuesday morning.
Later, a Russian drone attack on the town of Novhorod-Siverskyi killed four civilians and wounded 10 others, the state emergency service said.
“Today, the enemy attacked Novgorod-Siverskyi with strike drones. According to preliminary information, four people were killed, 10 more were injured, among them a 10-year-old child,” the emergency service said on Telegram on Tuesday.
Local officials said the town in northern Ukraine, which is about 20 miles (32 km) from the Russian border, had suffered significant damage.
In Chernihiv, residents filled containers with water from cisterns on the street, and people headed to “invincibility points” – tents with stoves and generators set up by authorities to give locals some access to heat and electricity.
Local officials accused Russia of circling drones above the damaged energy facilities, making it impossible to begin repairs. Chernihiv’s acting mayor, Oleksandr Lomako, said Moscow was seeking to deprive local residents of power and heat ahead of the cold winter.
“They just hit and destroy everything. There’s no end to this,” Nataliia, 43, told the news agency Reuters.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later wrote on Telegram that repairs were under way. “Russia’s tactics are to murder people and terrorise them with the cold,” he said.
“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin pretends to be ready for diplomacy and peace negotiations, while in reality this night Russia launched a brutal missile and drone attack,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X.
The Russian attack also targeted the neighbouring Sumy region, where local authorities said nine people were wounded.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Since the start of the war, Russia has consistently targeted Ukrainian energy facilities, leaving the country scrambling to provide power to its homes and industries, often in subzero temperatures.
United States President Donald Trump has for months sought to end the war and announced last week that he would meet soon with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
However, officials from Russia and the US said on Tuesday that a meeting was not scheduled.
“There are no plans for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the immediate future,” a senior White House official told Al Jazeera.
Moscow also denied that a meeting was imminent, saying that preparations “could take time”.
“No precise timeframe was initially set here,” said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. “Preparation is needed, serious preparation.”
The cancellation of the summit comes after a burst of diplomatic activity aimed at launching talks on ending Russia’s war.
With Trump apparently growing frustrated with Putin’s stance on ending the war, he has spoken about sending Ukraine Tomahawk missiles, which could allow Ukraine to strike deeper in Russian territory.
Zelenskyy was in Washington last week seeking to secure the weapons, but he left without an agreement.
The meeting on Friday was reportedly tense, with the US president reportedly sharing Putin’s demand that Ukraine cede the entirety of its eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Ukraine’s president and European leaders accused Putin of stalling for time in diplomatic efforts to end the war, and opposed any move to make Kyiv surrender land captured by Russian forces in return for peace.
Eight European leaders as well as senior European Union officials said that the current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations, and that international borders must not be changed by force.
