Vladimir Putin’s onslaught of strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure hasn’t been enough to plunge the country into a blackout, in a blow to the Russian leader’s continued campaign of aggression. Moscow’s relentless bombardment of the eastern European country’s power grid hasn’t yet brought the wartorn region to its knees, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Mr Zelensky said Ukraine’s energy system was continuing to function, despite all of the country’s power plants sustaining damage, thanks to the efforts of staff on the ground and air defence partners.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, February 14, he said: “We continue to produce electricity thanks to our people. And we have preserved our system thanks to the physical protection of our facilities and everyone who helps us with air defence.” It comes after an elderly woman was killed in an overnight attack on Friday when a Russian drone hit a residential building in the Black Sea port city of Odesa. Russian strikes also killed three children in the northeastern region of Kharkiv on Wednesday, according to Ukrainian officials.

President Zelensky stressed Ukraine’s urgent need for more air defence supplies during the conference, which was held days before the fourth anniversary of Russia’s illegal invasion, which has killed hundreds of thousands and decimated the country’s eastern region.

He told other world leaders that Ukraine had defended itself against “6,000 attack drones” in January, as well as “150+ Russian missiles of different types” and glide bombs.

Kyiv has accused Russia of using the cold weather as a weapon by targeting civilian heat and power infrastructure as winter temperatures continue to drop.

As fighting continues along the Ukraine-Russia border, envoys from the two countries are due to meet for US-brokered peace talks in Geneva, Switzerland, next week.

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Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said meetings would be held on Tuesday and Wednesday, but it remains unclear whether the discussions will resolve seemingly insurmountable disagreements, including on the future of Ukraine’s industrial heartland in Donbas, most of which is under occupation by Russian forces.

President Zelensky said Kyiv was doing “everything” to end the war and repeated his position that viable security guarantees are the only way for a peace deal to prevent future invasions.

He also suggested that Donald Trump’s US administration expects Ukraine to make more concessions than Russia and accused Putin of wanting to “repeat” the division of Czechoslovakia in 1938, the year before World War 2 broke out.

“It would be an illusion to believe that this war can now be reliably ended by dividing Ukraine, just as it was an illusion to believe that sacrificing Czechoslovakia would save Europe from a great war,” he told the conference. “With Russia, you cannot leave a single loophole.”