I wish you health!
I have just held a coordination call on the situation across all our regions. In the Dnipro region, in Ternivka of the Pavlohrad district, Russian drones struck an ordinary bus – a bus carrying miners. Sadly, many people were killed. My condolences to all the families and loved ones. There are also people who were wounded. In Nikopol and Marhanets, there were power outages due to drone strikes on the power grid. There were also strikes on logistics – on the railways in the Dnipro region. In Konotop, Sumy region, the Russians also struck railway infrastructure today. Railway workers are responding, carrying out repairs, trying to restore everything promptly, and maintaining connectivity between regions.
There was a report on the Kyiv region: cogeneration capacity is being added in the region virtually every day. This is extremely important, thank you. Thermal kits are being distributed to people, and we will expand this program. Around five thousand such thermal kits are distributed across the Kyiv region every day. I would like to thank Naftogaz for supporting this program. An extremely difficult situation with heating continues in Kyiv. More than 500 apartment buildings are without heating. Repair work is still ongoing. And this certainly cannot be perceived as normal in a city where, for far more than a week now, the number of buildings without heating is hundreds every single day, regardless of the situation. Whether there are strikes or not, hundreds of buildings in Kyiv remain without heating. This means that the measures being taken in the city are not sufficient.
There was a report from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine on assistance points and warming centers in Kyiv. More people are turning to them now, and additional centers have been set up in several districts. Hot meals are being provided, and assistance will be given to everyone who needs such support. The 112 line is operating to register all needs. There is also a government contact center. At the very least, the city must work faster with government agencies in this area – I strongly urge this – so that people can receive timely assistance and accurate information.
There were also reports on the situation in the Kharkiv, Cherkasy, Khmelnytskyi, and Chernivtsi regions. Separately, together with the Minister of Energy, we discussed cooperation with Romania. There were reports on the Donetsk region, and it is important that the services are responding to every need – thank you for this. In Odesa and the Odesa region, recovery efforts after severe weather are ongoing; all necessary forces are engaged. There are power outages in the Kirovohrad region – repair work is underway. There were also reports on the Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, and Poltava regions, as well as Mykolaiv and the region. The Chernihiv and Kherson regions, as well as our Zaporizhzhia and the region, are under heavy shelling, and every such attack must be met with a response – both military and diplomatic. The first depends on our warriors, but the second depends more on our partners.
There was a report by our negotiating team. There is already an arrangement to hold a trilateral meeting at an appropriate level. This meeting will take place next week, as planned – on Wednesday and Thursday, in the United Arab Emirates, as last time.
I have just spoken with Rustem Umerov. I have scheduled a meeting for tomorrow to agree on the framework of the talks and prepare everything. On Monday evening, the team will already be en route to the negotiations. Many leaders, from different countries, are with us in this process, supporting Ukraine, and we coordinate virtually every day. February will be a period of quite intense foreign policy activity on our part, with contacts and meetings beginning tomorrow.
We expect the American side to be just as active, particularly when it comes to de-escalation measures – reducing strikes. Much depends on what the U.S. can achieve so that people trust both the process and the outcomes, of course.
Today’s Russian strike on a bus in the Dnipro region is a crime – a telling crime – that yet again shows that Russia bears responsibility for the escalation. Evil must be stopped. Thank you to everyone around the world who stands with Ukraine!
Glory to Ukraine!
