Around 600,000 people leave Kyiv as Russian strikes cut power and heat

Since the start of January, around 600,000 people have left Kyiv amid power and heating outages caused by Russian attacks, Mayor Vitali Klitschko told The Times.

The figure is based on mobile billing data, Klitschko’s press office later explained to Ukrainska Pravda. According to those records, about 600,000 fewer subscribers are now spending nights in the city than in December. The press office emphasized that the figure may reflect multiple causes.

“That’s where the mayor’s number comes from,” the press office said. “We used the same method at the start of the war, when we estimated that around 800,000 people remained in the city. Some residents followed the advice to leave if they had somewhere to go — to the suburbs or to stay with friends. Winter holidays have also been extended. And many students are studying online, so some of them have left too, especially those who aren’t originally from Kyiv.”

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Russian forces have carried out several large-scale strikes on Kyiv’s energy, water, and heating infrastructure since early January. The first came on the night of January 8, when roughly 500,000 people lost electricity and nearly 6,000 apartment buildings — about half of the city’s housing stock — were left without heating. At the time, Klitschko urged residents to leave the city if they were able.

Most heating was restored by January 12, but another attack the following day compounded the damage, forcing authorities to reintroduce emergency power cuts. On the night of January 19, Russian forces struck Kyiv again, leaving half the city without heating once more.

The outages have also triggered a public dispute between Klitschko and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. On January 14, Zelensky criticized Kyiv’s authorities for what he described as an insufficient pace of repairs, contrasting the situation with Kharkiv, where, despite constant attacks, similar disruptions have been avoided.

Officials in Ukraine’s central government argue that Kyiv’s city administration failed to adequately protect thermal power plants and other energy facilities, and did not secure enough mobile generators and backup systems ahead of winter. Klitschko’s allies counter that protecting major power-generation sites requires decisions and resources at the national level, not the municipal one.

Government sources cited by RBC Ukraine believe Moscow’s broader goal is to make Kyiv unlivable by targeting critical infrastructure.

“The obvious objective is to exhaust Ukrainians with cold and darkness so that they pressure their own officials from below to agree to serious concessions in peace talks — ‘just to make it all stop,’” the outlet wrote. “So far, that goal has clearly not been achieved: despite all the hardship, there are no signs that the public mood has shifted toward surrender.”