Emergency Power Cuts Disrupt Cities in Ukraine and Moldova Amid Winter Strategy
Emergency power cuts swept across several Ukrainian cities and neighboring Moldova on Saturday, officials reported, as the Kremlin pledged to pause strikes on Kyiv during an extreme cold spell. Ukraine’s Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal attributed the outages to a technical malfunction affecting power lines connecting the two countries. The failure “caused a cascading outage in Ukraine’s power grid,” he explained, which activated automatic protection systems.
Impact on Infrastructure and Civilian Life
Blackouts were reported in Kyiv, as well as the Zhytomyr and Kharkiv regions, disrupting daily life and essential services. Officials noted that the outage interrupted water supplies to the Ukrainian capital and temporarily halted the subway system due to low voltage. Moldova also faced major power disruptions, including in its capital, Chisinau.
“Due to the loss of power lines on the territory of Ukraine, the automatic protection system was triggered, which disconnected the electricity supply,” said Moldova’s Energy Minister Dorin Junghietu in a Facebook post. He urged the public to “stay calm until electricity is restored.”
Russia’s Winter Weaponization and Cold Forecast
The large-scale outage follows weeks of Russian strikes on Ukraine’s already strained energy grid, exacerbating severe power shortages. Ukrainian officials describe Moscow’s tactics as “weaponizing winter,” aiming to deny civilians heat, light, and water. While similar strategies have been used throughout Russia’s nearly four-year invasion, this winter has seen temperatures plummet further than usual, causing widespread hardship.
Forecasters warned that Ukraine will endure a brutally cold period lasting into next week, with temperatures in some areas expected to drop to minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit), according to the State Emergency Service.
Trump’s Request for a Temporary Pause
US President Donald Trump claimed late Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to a temporary pause in targeting Kyiv and other Ukrainian towns during the extreme weather. “I personally asked President Putin not to fire on Kyiv and the cities and towns for a week during this … extraordinary cold,” Trump stated during a Cabinet meeting. He added that Putin “agreed to that,” though no details were provided on when the request was made.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed Friday that Trump “made a personal request” to Putin to cease strikes on Kyiv until Sunday “in order to create favorable conditions for negotiations.” Talks between US, Russian, and Ukrainian officials are set for February 1 in Abu Dhabi, following a previous meeting in late January, the first time teams from the Trump administration and Russia met simultaneously.
