{"id":8875,"date":"2026-01-16T16:20:48","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T16:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/?p=8875"},"modified":"2026-01-16T16:20:48","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T16:20:48","slug":"as-russian-attacks-worsen-ukraines-energy-woes-trump-rebukes-kyiv-russia-ukraine-war-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/?p=8875","title":{"rendered":"As Russian attacks worsen Ukraine\u2019s energy woes, Trump rebukes Kyiv | Russia-Ukraine war News"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Russian attacks deepened the energy and humanitarian crises in Ukraine during the second week of the year, as temperatures dropped below freezing.<\/p>\n

On January 9, Russia pounded Kyiv and several other cities with 242 kamikaze drones and 26 missiles, said Ukraine\u2019s Air Force, which managed to shoot down all but 16 of the drones and 18 missiles.<\/p>\n

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Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n

list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n

Even so, the drones and missiles that got through to Kyiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Odesa, Dnipro, and Lviv killed four people and wounded nearly 30.<\/p>\n

The strikes left 6,000 apartment buildings and half a million people without power, heat and water in sub-freezing temperatures, with January winds howling into homes whose windows were shattered.<\/p>\n

Approximately 1,000 apartment buildings in Kyiv were still without power two days later.<\/p>\n

\"INTERACTIVE-WHO
[Al Jazeera]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On January 13, Russia struck again, targeting power stations and electricity substations, killing another four civilians.<\/p>\n

Emergency power cuts were introduced in Kyiv and Chernihiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia and the Donetsk regions, the energy ministry said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the weekend, my apartment on the left bank [of the Dnipro river] had the luxury of having five hours\u2019 worth of electricity within a span of 72 hours,\u201d wrote deputy editor of the Kyiv Independent Oleksiy Sorokin.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy apartment technically has heating, but it\u2019s very weak,\u201d wrote the newspaper\u2019s head of social media, Liza Nechyporuk. \u201cI bought several hot water bottles, and I use them while working and while sleeping.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Russians are exploiting the weather \u2013 the cold snap \u2013 trying to hit as many of our energy facilities as possible,\u201d said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.<\/p>\n

\"INTERACTIVE-WHO
[Al Jazeera]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After the second attack, Zelenskyy declared a state of emergency for Ukraine\u2019s energy sector and set up a coordination headquarters in Kyiv for repair work.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy also appointed former Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal as the energy minister with instructions to \u201cincrease electricity import capacities using all business opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the situation was difficult in the whole Dnipro valley, including Odesa and Kryvyi Rih.<\/p>\n

The Kyiv Independent said the latest strikes brought to 70 percent the proportion of the energy infrastructure hit by Russia this winter.<\/p>\n

Even before Russia\u2019s two strikes, Zelenskyy said the weather alone was \u201ccausing serious problems on the roads and with utilities,\u201d calling it \u201can emergency situation for all services\u201d.<\/p>\n

Russian missile diplomacy<\/h2>\n

The assaults came after an agreement was almost reached between the United States and Ukraine on January 8, on the provision of security guarantees following a ceasefire.<\/p>\n

\"INTERACTIVE-WHO
[Al Jazeera[<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the same time, Ukraine\u2019s allies, the Coalition of the Willing, were finalising the details of a multinational force that would be sent to help maintain a ceasefire.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe architecture of post-war security is practically already in place,\u201d Zelenskyy<\/a> had said on January 6 at a joint news conference with France\u2019s President Emannuel Macron and US negotiator Steve Witkoff.<\/p>\n

On January 9, the United Kingdom said it was accelerating funds of $268m to finance the UK contingent of the multinational force.<\/p>\n

Russia lambasted the developments.<\/p>\n

On January 8, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova called support for a multinational force \u201cmilitaristic declarations\u201d from an \u201caxis of war,\u201d and repeated the Russian position that European forces in Ukraine would be considered \u201clegitimate combat targets\u201d.<\/p>\n

To ram the point home, Russia included its newest ballistic missile, the Oreshnik, in the barrage that fell on Ukraine the following day.<\/p>\n

The missile damaged an aircraft factory servicing F-16 and MiG-29 fighters in Lviv, Russia\u2019s defence ministry said, but its diplomatic import was that it would be Russia\u2019s weapon of choice against European troops.<\/p>\n

Russian National Security Council chairman Dmitry Medvedev posted video of the Oreshnik strike on social media, warning members of the coalition, \u201cthis is what you\u2019ll get\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been said a thousand times: Russia won\u2019t accept any European or NATO troops in Ukraine,\u201d Medvedev wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cRussia\u2019s behaviour and rhetoric in no way indicate that they want to end this war,\u201d Zelenskyy said on Monday.<\/p>\n

Trump and Russia<\/h2>\n

Despite the fact that Ukraine has engaged with the US to formulate precise ceasefire and post-war security agreements, US President Donald Trump told the Reuters news agency that Ukraine, not Russia, was holding up a peace deal.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s ready to make a deal,\u201d Trump said of Russian President Vladimir Putin. \u201cI think Ukraine is less ready to make a deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked why negotiations had not yet ended the war, Trump said, \u201cZelenskyy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked why he thought Zelenskyy was holding up a deal, Trump said, \u201cI just think he\u2019s, you know, having a hard time getting there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump is clear that Zelenskyy is sabotaging and delaying peace,\u201d agreed the head of Russia\u2019s sovereign wealth fund, Kiril Dimitriev, who has acted as one of Putin\u2019s main negotiators.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine found that conflict-related violence killed 2,514 civilians and injured 12,142 in 2025, a 31 percent rise in the number of victims from 2024.<\/p>\n

\"A
A woman walks on debris inside a gym situated in a building of Pthe rofessional Lyceum of Construction and Architecture, which was hit by a Russian drone strike in Odesa, Ukraine, on January 13, 2026 [Nina Liashonok\/Reuters]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Russian officials appear to be demonstrating that they see dividends in deepening the cleavage between the US and Europe, now manifesting itself as a real crisis over the fate of Greenland, a Danish-owned, self-governed territory.<\/p>\n

Russian Ambassador to Copenhagen Vladimir Barbin told Izvestia that under the Monroe Doctrine, \u201cGreenland is considered within the sphere of US interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this context,\u201d he said, \u201cit will be difficult to reconcile US ambitions, Greenland\u2019s aspirations for independence, and Denmark\u2019s sovereignty over this Arctic island.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov provided a reminder of Russia\u2019s territorial ambitions in Ukraine on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration, he said, \u201cunderstand perfectly well that without resolving the issue related to the fate of people living in Crimea, Novorossiya, and Donbas, who categorically reject the [Kyiv] regime, having expressed their desire to return to Russia, without resolving this issue nothing will work,\u201d he said during a visit to New Delhi.<\/p>\n

Russia has annexed the Donbas and Crimea, as well as the regions of Zaporizhia and Kherson, which it mostly occupies. But Novorossiya is a reference to an additional belt of regions adjoining these \u2013 Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv and Odesa. Annexing these would give Russia Ukraine\u2019s entire Black Sea coast and ports.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Russian attacks deepened the energy and humanitarian crises in Ukraine during the second week of the year, as temperatures dropped below freezing. On January 9, Russia pounded Kyiv and several other cities with 242 kamikaze drones and 26 missiles, said Ukraine\u2019s Air Force, which managed to shoot down all but 16 of the drones and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}