A sham “energy truce”. Day 1441 of the war
Last week, the Russians continued their offensive in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. They expanded their bridgeheads on the western bank of the Haichur River, where the main fighting is currently taking place between it and the railway line running parallel. According to some sources, after capturing the key town of Ternuvate, Russian troops crossed it and launched another attack to the west (depending on the source, the village of Prydorozhnie was captured or fighting for it is still ongoing). Ukrainian troops counterattacked unsuccessfully in the Huliaipole area, but this slowed down the Russian advance west of the town. In the western part of the oblast, the Russian offensive split into two separate directions, largely as a result of persistent Ukrainian defence in the Stepnohirsk area. The Russians advanced further north along the banks of the Dnipro River, according to some sources reaching Richne, as well as east of the river, where fighting continues for Novoyakivlivka (8 km south of Komyshuvakha, the main logistics hub for defenders in the western part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast).
Fierce fighting continues in Kostiantynivka and on the southern and eastern outskirts of the city. The Russians are storming north of the Pokrovsk-Bakhmut road that runs through it. According to some sources, they have entered the centre and captured the railway station located at the intersection of the main roads (i.e. the aforementioned road and the road from Horlivka to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk). Apart from Kostiantynivka, Kupiansk remains an arena of street fighting, but the positions of the parties have not changed significantly there. Further border areas in the Kharkiv and Sumy oblasts have come under Russian control, but this has not significantly affected the overall situation on the front.
On the night of 3 February, the Russians carried out another massive attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Among the targets hit were: thermal power plants in Kyiv and its vicinity (TEC-4 and Trypilska), Dnipro (Prydniprovska) and Ladyzhyn in Vinnytsia Oblast, as well as a combined heat and power plant in Kharkiv, a substation distributing electricity from the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant to Kyiv and central Ukraine, and facilities in the Odesa and Sumy oblasts. According to Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal, the attack affected a total of eight oblasts, and several hundred thousand Ukrainian families were cut off from heating (at a temperature of -25 degrees Celsius). The most damage was caused in Kyiv (another 1,170 buildings were cut off from heating, which has not yet been fully restored after previous strikes and failures) and in Kharkiv (820 buildings without heating). According to the Ukrainian Air Force Command (UAFC), Russia used 450 unmanned aerial vehicles (including 300 strike “Shaheds”) and 71 ballistic and cruise missiles in the attack. Ukraine declared it had neutralised 412 drones and shot down 38 missiles.
In the days preceding the massive attack, there was a noticeable decrease in the number of strikes on energy infrastructure, which some Ukrainian and Russian bloggers linked to the so-called energy truce (reports of which appeared on 29 January). According to this, both sides would commit to not attacking energy infrastructure and issue appropriate orders to their troops. President Donald Trump announced that he had personally asked Vladimir Putin to suspend attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities for a week. The issue of a mutual cessation of attacks on energy infrastructure was to be raised during talks in Abu Dhabi on 23–24 January, but, as President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on 30 January, no “direct agreements” on this matter were reached. The Ukrainian leader stated that his forces would refrain from attacks as long as the enemy did the same. On the same day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov presented the Russian position, according to which Moscow, at Trump’s request, had committed to suspending attacks on Kyiv’s energy facilities for a week, until 1 February.
The massive Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, including transmission facilities, which have been ongoing since last autumn, combined with low temperatures, resulted in a technological failure on 31 January. This resulted in cascading power outages across a large part of the Ukrainian grid, which also affected the energy systems of Moldova (several hours of power outages in Chișinău) and Romania. Periodic blackouts occurred in Kyiv and the Kyiv, Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Zhytomyr oblasts. Water supplies were also interrupted in the Ukrainian capital. The failure hampered the removal of the effects of earlier Russian attacks, which had not been dealt with by 3 February. It cannot be ruled out that this influenced Russia’s decision to temporarily refrain from attacking Ukrainian energy infrastructure (given that the situation was so severe for Ukraine, these attacks were not necessary). Attacks on energy infrastructure took place on 28 and 29 January and 2 February. The attacks mainly targeted facilities in frontline and border areas, although on 2 February Russian drones also hit a substation in Cherkasy.
At the same time, Russia intensified its attacks on Ukrainian logistics. The most serious damage occurred on 30 January in the area of the Synelnykove railway junction in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Within 24 hours, 20 unmanned aerial vehicles struck station facilities and rolling stock, resulting in the interruption of the connection between Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia and effectively cutting off the latter from the rail network (trains nominally running from Zaporizhzhia currently depart from Dnipro, where replacement bus services have been launched). On 31 January and 2 February, railway infrastructure in Zaporizhzhia Oblast was attacked, the results of which included damage to one of the railway stations in Zaporizhzhia. On the evening of 27 January, Russian drones struck a passenger train travelling on the Barvinkove-Lviv-Chop line in Kharkiv Oblast (the first of these stations is currently a hub securing rail traffic from Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, from which trains no longer run). Five people were killed and two were injured. Ukrainian soldiers and civilians were travelling on the train. A day later, railway and port infrastructure in Pivdenne near Odesa was damaged.
On 1 February, a Russian drone struck a bus carrying miners in the area of Pavlohrad in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. 12people were killed and 16 were injured. On 30 January, the target was a Philip Morris cigarette factory in Kharkiv (according to local sources, two Iskander missiles hit it), and the day before, the Radioprylad plant in Zaporizhzhia. Some sources also reported attacks on airports – Kanatove near Kropyvnytskyi (29 January) and Myrhorod (31 January). The UAFC reported that, from the evening of 27 January to the morning of 3 February, Russia used a total of 1,158 drones (including 745 Shaheds) and 74 missiles (including a massive attack). 976 unmanned aerial vehicles were reportedly neutralised and 38 missiles shot down (all on 3 February). According to local regional military administrations, on 30 January and 1 February, the Russians used at least two more missiles than reported by the UAFC.
On 28 January, Ukrainian drones struck the Khokholskaya fuel depot near Voronezh, causing a fire. On the same day, Ukraine also attacked Krasnodar Krai and occupied Crimea, but there was no confirmation of any hits. According to some sources, the target of the air strike on 1 February was a synthetic rubber production plant in Yefremov in Tula Oblast.
On 28 January, the arms manufacturer Ukrayinska Bronetechnika announced progress in the production of its own 155 mm calibre artillery ammunition. According to the company’s CEO, Vladislav Belbas, the production cost of a standard M107 shell is approximately €2,500 per unit. At the end of 2025, the company declared it is ready to produce up to 240,000 M107 artillery shells per year under a licence granted by the Czech arms holding company Czechoslovak Group, provided that adequate financing is secured.
According to data from the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine from 28 January, more than 3.8 trillion hryvnia (approx. $90 billion) was spent on the security and defence sector in 2025, which represents 43% of gross domestic product.
According to a statement made on 29 January by Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, within six months of the launch of the government’s Brave1 Market digital platform, which enables the purchase of defence technologies, the Ukrainian army ordered 240,000 drones through it. The total value of the equipment ordered is approximately 13 billion hryvnia (approximately $300 million). As the minister pointed out, more than half of the orders have already been fulfilled, with over 160,000 unmanned aerial vehicles and other weapon systems reaching the front lines.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence and SpaceX are working together to solve the problem of the Starlink communication system being used to control Russian drones. On 31 January, at the request of the ministry, SpaceX disabled it for Ukrainian users in areas attacked by Russian drones, which use the same signal for navigation as the defenders. On 1 February, Elon Musk announced that the measures taken to prevent the unauthorised use of Starlink terminals by Russians had produced the expected results. A day later, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence published detailed instructions for verifying terminals. For soldiers, the procedure involves three steps: checking the device’s identification number, registering it on the Armiya+ digital platform (authorisation by the Ministry of Defence), and entering the data into the DELTA digital system, which displays the battlefield in real time. Individuals and sole traders will verify the terminals at the Ministry of Digital Transformation. The new rules are intended to ensure that the Starlink system is used exclusively for civilian and military purposes in accordance with Ukraine’s interests, thereby eliminating the risk of unauthorised Russian use.
On 29 January, Minister of Economy, Environment and Agriculture Oleksiy Sobolev pointed out that the number of Ukrainians not subject to mobilisation had increased from nearly 1 million to approximately 1.3 million. The system of reserving employees of enterprises has a direct impact on conscription, so it is crucial to maintain a balance between the needs of the Armed Forces and the functioning of the economy. Sobolev highlighted the positive impact of employee reservations on the economic situation. In his opinion, this mechanism has contributed to reducing the so-called grey employment sector. From 1 January, companies must ensure an average salary of 21,600 hryvnia (approx. $500). Previously, representatives of the energy and defence industries had signalled bureaucratic problems related to confirming the status of critical enterprises.
According to The Telegraph on 28 January, China is supplying Russia with specialised machinery, tools and technologically advanced equipment used in the production of modern weapons, including missiles such as the Oreshnik. The value of the transferred technology and equipment is estimated to be at least $10.3 billion. Ukrainian intelligence has previously confirmed the use of Chinese numerically controlled machine tools, including a vertical lathe, at plants in Votkinsk, a key Russian production centre for Iskander-M and Topol-M intercontinental missiles. In addition to machinery, China is thought to be supplying Russia with microprocessors and memory cards worth a total of $4.9 billion.
On 27 January, the State Border Service of Ukraine denied reports that more than 500,000 young Ukrainians had allegedly left the country in the last six months. According to available estimates, since September 2025, over 120,000 young men have left for Poland, more than half of whom have returned, nearly 44,000 have left for Romania, and about 10,000 have left for Slovakia, with a significant proportion also returning to the country. The total number of people in this age group who have left Ukraine permanently in the last five months is estimated to be around 78,000.
