Amid discussions of a possible ceasefire, Russia continued large-scale attacks across Ukraine despite the previously declared so-called “energy truce,” which the Kremlin was reported to have accepted at Donald Trump’s request. Targets included coal facilities supplying fuel to thermal power plants.
EU Ambassador to Ukraine Katarina Mathernova said on February 1 that the situation did not resemble a truce. According to her, the night again brought explosions, civilian deaths, and damage to energy and transport infrastructure. She said Russia launched 90 drones, with 14 hitting nine sites. In Dnipro, she said, two people were killed when a drone struck a private home, while in Konotop the attack hit railway infrastructure.
“Today’s attack is further proof that no ‘truce’ exists,” Mathernova said, noting that temperatures in Kyiv had fallen to minus 14 degrees Celsius and that hundreds of thousands of residents had lived for nearly a month without stable heating and electricity.
On February 1, an attack on a maternity hospital in Zaporizhzhia was also reported, leaving six people injured. Later, in Dnipropetrovsk region, Russian drones struck a coal-mining enterprise and a bus carrying miners. According to the article, 16 employees of DTEK Pavlohradvuhillia were killed while returning home from work. Ukrainian lawmaker Mykhailo Volynets said four Shahed-type drones were used.
Following new strikes on energy infrastructure, consumers in the Kharkiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, and Cherkasy regions were left without power. Military and political analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko of the Information Resistance group told Novaya-Europe that during the night of February 2, 171 drones were launched at various parts of Ukraine, around 100 of them being Shahed-136 and BM-35 Italmaz strike drones.
In the assessment of Kovalenko and military expert, retired Ukrainian colonel Roman Svitan, the strike on the bus carrying miners was not accidental and may have been planned in advance. Both sources also linked the increase in such attacks to preparations for a new round of negotiations which, the article says, is expected to begin within days.