A state of emergency had been declared for the entire energy sector in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced after a crisis meeting on Wednesday.

A coordination centre will be set up to deal specifically with the needs of capital Kiev, a city of 3 million people. The entire government is to organize additional equipment and aid.

Kiev's supply networks were knocked out during a heavy Russian airstrike last Friday. Initially, 6,000 apartment blocks had no heating, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at a meeting with his city administration.

Currently, 400 buildings are still without heating, and it is hoped that they will be reconnected to the district heating network by Wednesday evening.

With temperatures of -12 degrees Celsius during the day and -18 degrees at night, unheated buildings cool down quickly.

Three hours of light, 10 hours of darkness

For most citizens, there are only three hours of electricity and then 10 or more hours without, Klitschko reported. The city is in its most difficult situation since the start of the war with Russia in 2022.

Kiev is suffering from a humanitarian crisis and is reaching a critical point, journalist Oleksiy Sorokin of the Kyiv Independent wrote on X.

"I think it’s safe to say that Kyiv has reached the state of a severe humanitarian crisis and approaches a critical point," he said. "There are places in Kiev that are currently uninhabitable."

Criticism of Kiev's city leadership

However, the government's intervention in the capital, and thus in Klitschko's jurisdiction, also means that an old political conflict is resurfacing.

The newly appointed Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal praised the city of Kharkiv's preparations for such emergencies in parliament. Kiev was ill-prepared, he said. "I would say completely unprepared. That is why emergency measures must now be taken," Shmyhal asserted.

As one step, the government wants to relax the night-time curfew so that citizens can go to the approximately 1,200 warming centres in Kiev at any time.

Russia reports drone deaths

Mutual drone attacks between Russia and Ukraine overnight into Wednesday caused casualties and damage to energy infrastructure, regional officials on both sides said.

In the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, four people were injured in a Ukrainian drone attack, the governor of the Rostov region, Yury Slyusar, said in a post on Telegram. Fires broke out in several apartments in multi-storey residential buildings, and a man was found dead in one of the flats, he said.

Slyusar also reported two fires in the city's industrial zone.

In Russia’s Belgorod region, a woman was killed in the village of Zozuli in a Ukrainian drone strike, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. Later, a man was killed by a drone explosion in the city of Shebekino, he added.

Ukraine also hit

Russia again targeted Ukraine's energy infrastructure amid freezing temperatures.

In the south-eastern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, Russian forces attacked civilian infrastructure on Tuesday evening and overnight, according to the head of the city’s military administration, Oleksandr Vilkul.

The strikes triggered emergency power cuts affecting about 45,000 customers, while district heating was disrupted in more than 700 buildings, Vilkul said in a Telegram post. The situation had stabilized by morning, he added.

Ukraine has been defending itself against a full-scale Russian invasion for nearly four years. As part of its defence, Ukraine carries out strikes on targets inside Russia.

The number of casualties and the scale of damage from Ukrainian attacks are far smaller than the devastation caused by Russian strikes across Ukraine.