Ukraine-Russia war latest: Ukrainian parliament and 1 million homes in Kyiv without power after Putin’s strikes

Ukrainian drones struck towns in southern Russia, injuring eight people and prompting the evacuation of several residents, local officials said in the early hours today.

The governor of the Adygean Republic in Russia’s North Caucasus, Murat Kumpilov, said a drone struck an apartment building in a village in the Takhtamukaysky district, injuring eight people, including a child. Seven were being treated in hospital, he said.

Kumpilov said at least 15 vehicles were set on fire.

In the adjacent Krasnodar region on the Black Sea, governor Venyamin Kondratiev said a drone fell near an apartment building in a village south of the main regional centre of Krasnodar.

The building’s residents had been evacuated and temporary shelters set up.

Kondratiev said an attack on the coastal town of Primorsko-Akhtarsk had damaged two private homes. Drone fragments had also hit the ground in Sochi, the region’s major coastal town, but caused no damage.

Oleksandra Oliynykova, the Ukrainian tennis player, made a distinctive impression at the Australian Open, not only for her unconventional playing style and striking body art but also for a poignant message subtly conveyed after her first-round loss to defending champion Madison Keys.

Following her defeat on Rod Laver Arena, Oliynykova appeared at a post-match news conference wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a powerful plea: “I need your help to protect Ukrainian women and children but I can’t talk about it here.”

This statement navigated the Grand Slam guidelines, which typically discourage players from using competition venues for political declarations.

The player said she came close to being hit in an attack before coming to Australia to play. “There was an explosion just near my home and a drone hit the home just across the road,” she told Melbourne Age newspaper. “My apartment was literally shaking because of the explosion.”

She has also called for a ban on world number one Aryna Sabalenka and other Belarusian and Russian players from tennis, saying their presence was “very wrong” with the war going on.

Envoys for US president Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin said that their meeting in Davos yesterday on a possible future peace deal to end the Ukraine war had been “very positive” and “constructive”.

“Dialogue is constructive and more and more people understand the fairness of Russia’s position,” Putin envoy Kirill Dmitriev said after talks with Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner at “USA House” at Davos.

Witkoff said: “We had a very positive meeting,” Russia’s RIA news agency reported. The meeting lasted for two hours, a source who spoke on condition of anonymity said.

Trump’s continued push to bring the war in Ukraine to an end has seen his envoys hold meetings with both Russian and Ukrainian delegations but no deal has yet been reached.

Ukraine’s European allies, currently fighting off Trump’s threats against Greenland, are concerned the United States could force Ukraine into accepting territorial concessions.

Ukraine’s military is working to replace Chinese-made drones with domestically produced models to help the war-hit nation move away from imports and sanctioned supply lines, the newly appointed defence minister said.

Mykhailo Fedorov said Ukraine would continue to rely on drones as a tool of asymmetric warfare – using novel weapons and methods against a larger opponent.

Ukraine’s parliament building is among thousands left without electricity, heating and water after Russia’s overnight strikes on Ukraine’s energy grid, officials said.

“After another Russian missile and drone attack, Ukrainian cities have been left without electricity, water, and heating. The Verkhovna Rada (parliament) of Ukraine is currently without these basic services as well,” Ruslan Stefanchuk, the parliament’s speaker, said.

Yaroslav Zhelezniak, a lawmaker from the Holos party, said on the Telegram app that parliament’s support office would work remotely today due to a lack of water and heating in the building. There were no parliamentary sessions scheduled on Tuesday.

Yesterday, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said the Russian attacks cut heating supplies to 5,635 multi-storey residential apartment buildings.

Britain and Denmark will hold defence talks today focusing on security in the Arctic region, the British government said, at a time when US president Donald Trump’s designs on Greenland threaten to upend historic alliances.

Defence secretary John Healey will be in Copenhagen today, his ministry said.

He will discuss how European nations can step up security in the “high north”, a term used to refer to the European Arctic which includes the island of Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark.

The UK and Denmark want to protect critical national infrastructure in the Baltic and high north.

They will discuss a planned exercise later this year by the Joint Expeditionary Force, a UK-led northern European rapid response military partnership.

Support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, as well as counter-drone cooperation, will also be on the agenda.

Wayne Jordash KC, president of Global Rights Compliance, has warned of Russia’s calculated weaponisation of infrastructure during the Ukraine’s harshest winter since the start of the full-scale invasion.

He said: “Russia’s widespread and systematic strikes on Ukrainian civilian energy infrastructure are creating brutal conditions inside Ukraine during the freezing winter, with temperatures more severe than usual.

“These callous attacks bear the clear hallmarks of inhumane acts constituting crimes against humanity, and they are certainly war crimes, intentionally condemning many of Ukraine’s civilian population to cold, dark conditions for most of the day and night.

“Electricity, heating, and water are essential, not only for household tasks such as cooking, washing, and keeping households warm, but to ensure the safety of children, the elderly and the handicapped at home and in healthcare who are particularly at risk from the cold and the deprivation.

“Russia’s continued weaponisation of infrastructure is part of a calculated plan to fracture communities, paralyse Ukraine’s economy, and push the population to the brink. As anybody who knows Ukrainians, it will not work. But Ukraine’s European allies must ramp up their support with urgent energy aid packages to enable the country to weather these cruel attacks and avoid a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.”

Ukrainian drones struck towns in southern Russia, injuring eight people and prompting the evacuation of several residents, local officials said early on Wednesday.

The governor of the Adygean Republic in Russia’s North Caucasus, Murat Kumpilov, said a drone struck an apartment building in a village in the Takhtamukaysky district, injuring eight people, including a child. Seven were being treated in hospital.

Kumpilov, writing on Telegram, said at least 15 vehicles were set on fire.

In the adjacent Krasnodar region on the Black Sea, Governor Venyamin Kondratiev said a drone fell near an apartment building in a village south of the main regional centre of Krasnodar.

The building’s residents had been evacuated and temporary shelters set.

Kondratiev said an attack on the coastal town of Primorsko-Akhtarsk had damaged two private homes. Drone fragments had also hit the ground in Sochi, the region’s major coastal town, but caused no damage.

‌Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy system threaten nuclear safety and ‌show Moscow is using the risk of nuclear disaster as a ‌tool of ​coercion, ​Kyiv’s foreign minister said on Tuesday ‍after the UN’s atomic watchdog ‍said ​substations vital ‍for nuclear safety were affected by strikes.

“While Russian ‍officials speak about ⁠the ‘importance’ of power lines, their forces deliberately strike substations, directly endangering nuclear safety and defying repeated IAEA warnings,” Andrii Sybiha wrote on X.