Last week, President Trump stated that he had asked Putin to halt strikes on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, and that Putin allegedly agreed to pause the attacks for a week, until February 1.
At the same time, let's not forget that there was no officially confirmed ceasefire.
The Kremlin never issued a formal statement announcing a nationwide pause in attacks, and Putin himself did not publicly confirm any such agreement. Instead, Russian media reports suggested a limited pause until February 1.
This week, on February 3, President Trump commented on this "ceasefire"
"The pause was from Sunday to Sunday. It opened up and (Putin) hit them hard... He kept his word on that. One week is a lot."
Let us look at that week - what happened in reality and what occurred immediately after the promised period of "ceasefire" and two days later, on one of the coldest days since the beginning of 2026, when temperatures in some parts of Ukraine dropped to -30°C.
January 25 (Sunday): Russia launched a large-scale attack with drones and missiles. Kyiv was still dealing with widespread heating disruptions caused by earlier strikes on January 23-24.
January 26 (Monday): Russia continued combined attacks across multiple regions (missiles and drones), with damage to civilian infrastructure reported by local authorities.
January 27 (Tuesday): Three drones hit a passenger train in the Kharkiv region. Officials said there were 291 passengers on board; the strike killed 5 people.
Russian forces also carried out a major drone strike on Odesa, damaging residential buildings, killing 4 people and injuring 25.
January 28 (Wednesday): A drone strike hit a residential building in Bilohorodka, Kyiv Oblast, killing two people and damaging apartments.
January 29-30 (Thursday-Friday): On January 30, President Zelensky announced that Russia did not target Ukrainian energy facilities overnight from January 29 to 30. However, earlier on January 29, Russian attacks had already damaged energy infrastructure in several regions. Additionally, in Donetsk Oblast, there was a strike on the gas infrastructure via an air bomb attack. Meanwhile, drone attacks on civilian residential areas in Ukrainian cities persisted, indicating that no ceasefire was in effect. Russia has redirected its efforts towards targeting logistics and major junction stations.
January 31 (Saturday): Russian shelling and drone activity continued in border and frontline regions, targeting residential areas and civilian infrastructure.
There were no signs of de-escalation, no public signals of restraint, and no indication that the so-called pause would extend beyond its informal deadline. Air defences and civilians stayed on alert, and here we explained why.
February 1 (Sunday): In Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, a Russian drone struck a civilian bus carrying miners employed by DTEK, one of Ukraine's largest energy companies. According to confirmed reports, at least 12 workers were killed, with several others seriously injured.
This was not an attack on electricity grids, it was an attack on the people who maintain them.
According to the DTEK company, it is the largest single loss of life among employees
since Russia launched its full-scale war in 2022.
February 2 (Monday): In Cherkasy Oblast, drone strikes damaged homes and injured civilians, while official police reports on strikes in Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy and other oblasts. Across the country, at least 7 civilians were killed, and dozens were injured.
February 3 (Tuesday): Russia launched a deliberately timed, large-scale strike against Ukraine's energy system during one of the coldest days of the winter, when temperatures in parts of the country dropped to -30°C.
Zelenskyy stated that Russia had used the short-term pause proposed by the American side not to support diplomacy, but to stockpile missiles and drones and wait for maximum humanitarian impact. Energy facilities were hit across multiple regions, including Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Odesa and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts.
That same day, DTEK reported new strikes on its thermal power plants, the ninth large-scale attack on the company's facilities since October 2025, as well as damage to energy infrastructure operated by DTEK Odesa Power Grids.
The scale of the attacks, with the February 3 attack being one of the most severe, once again confirms that Moscow does not treat diplomatic gestures as confidence-building measures but as tactical opportunities for itself.
The "pause" had not been about de-escalation, but it was about gaining some time and about striking when the frost would hurt Ukrainians the most.
There is another dangerous precedent here: when even a brief pause in the scale of attacks is described as "keeping one's word" and the diplomacy being allowed to look like this, the next pause will demand even less and the next strike will cost even more.
UkraineWorld_Editorial
This publication was compiled with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation. It's content is the exclusive responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the International Renaissance Foundation.
