Moscow launched more than two dozen missiles and hundreds of drones in a major assault on Ukrainian residential areas and its power grid Jan. 13. The goal of President Vladimir Putin’s regime is to leave civilians without heat, power and water as the harshest part of winter hits. Some half a million people were left without power in the Kyiv region.
In the northeastern Kharkiv area, four people were killed and six injured when a mail depot was targeted. Rescue workers worked to free survivors by lamplight in freezing temperatures.
On Jan. 8, two Russian ballistic missiles damaged multiple apartment buildings in Kryvyi Rih, killing one person and injuring 24, including six children.
The Kremlin is trying to wear down Ukrainian resistance by targeting working people. In 2025 civilian casualties were the highest since the year of the invasion itself in 2022. Moscow has hit Ukraine with daily aerial barrages for months, “deliberately terrorizing the civilian population, waiting for the harshest winter conditions, and striking cities across Ukraine,” a Jan. 9 statement by the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine said.
During another large-scale overnight attack the same day, Moscow used a powerful new nuclear-capable hypersonic missile for only the second time in the war. It hit near Lyiv in western Ukraine close to the border with Poland.
Putin is emboldened to launch these strikes now because of Washington’s growing disinterest in coming to Ukraine’s defense, as it is involved in conflicts elsewhere. And Putin’s murderous attacks are intended as a warning to European powers supporting the Ukrainian government that he doesn’t intend to back off. But the effect of these attacks reinforces the determination of Ukraine’s working people to fight back and defend their country’s sovereignty.