KYIV, Feb 2 (Reuters) – Russia has not carried out any targeted missile or drone strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in the last 24 hours although energy facilities in frontline areas have come under fire, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday.
Zelenskiy’s statement highlighted the limitations of a short-term energy truce that Russia agreed to last week at the request of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Zelenskiy said energy repair crews had managed to restore energy facilities damaged when high-voltage power lines malfunctioned over the weekend, on top of the damage caused by frequent Russian attacks.
“The (energy) system is operating stably. However, given the extremely cold weather and the impact of Russian strikes, all challenges remain serious,” Zelenskiy said on the Telegram app.
Zelenskiy said Russian forces were focused on attacking transport logistics, especially railway infrastructure.
Russia and Ukraine said last week they halted strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure, but disagreed on the timeframe for the truce.
The Kremlin said Trump had made a personal request to Russian President Vladimir Putin to refrain from striking Kyiv until February 1. Zelenskiy said the truce was supposed to last for a week, starting January 30.
A Russian drone strike on Sunday killed 12 miners at a coal mine in the Ukrainian Dnipropetrovsk region, officials said. DTEK said on Monday one of its coal mining enterprises in the Dnipropetrovsk region had been attacked for the second time in 24 hours.
Regional officials said that a Russian strike had killed a father and a son, and wounded two children and their mother in the frontline Donetsk region.
Kyiv and Moscow are preparing for talks in Abu Dhabi this week on how to end the war. The talks are expected to be on Wednesday and Thursday.
(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka, Olena Harmash; Editing by Timothy Heritage)
