4 January 2026

January 2026 in brief

Russian strikes on energy in a cold snap left almost 6,000 Kyiv apartment buildings without heating after an attack on 9 January that killed four people in the city, officials said, and 5,635 buildings were without heating after further strikes on 20 January, the UN human rights office said, citing Kyiv's mayor. ^[1][2] UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said he was outraged by the attacks on Ukraine's energy system and called them a clear breach of the rules of war, and President Zelensky declared emergency measures for the energy sector centred on Kyiv. ^[2] A drone hit a passenger train in Kharkiv Oblast, killing at least five, on a day Ukrainian officials said Russian strikes killed 12 across Ukraine, and HRMMU recorded 161 civilians killed and 757 injured in January. ^[1][2][3] In Russian-occupied Khorly, the Moscow-installed governor said a drone strike on a cafe on New Year's night killed at least 28 people, a toll not independently confirmed, while Ukraine's military said it strikes only military targets. ^[1] Russia fired an Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile at the Lviv area on 9 January, which its defence ministry called retaliation for an alleged drone attempt on a Putin residence that Kyiv denies, and DeepState reported Russian forces advancing in Huliaipole. ^[1][2] The first trilateral US-Ukraine-Russia talks opened in Abu Dhabi on 23 January, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov calling a Ukrainian withdrawal from Donbas a very important condition, and Russia later handed over 1,000 bodies it said were Ukrainian soldiers while Ukraine returned 38. ^[1][3] The Kremlin confirmed that Donald Trump had asked Vladimir Putin to refrain from striking Kyiv until 1 February, a pause Zelensky said took effect on 30 January. ^[1]

Written from the records it cites; every figure appears in a cited record.