600,000 Flee Kyiv as Russia Pushes City Toward ‘Humanitarian Catastrophe’ – Mayor Klitschko

Russian strikes have left half of Kyiv without power, heating, or water, pushing the city toward a “humanitarian catastrophe,” Mayor Vitali Klitschko warned on Tuesday.

“Leave if you can,” Klitschko urged residents as emergency crews scrambled to restore services amid a cold snap with temperatures as low as –18°C (0°F). He said about 600,000 people have already fled Kyiv this month, out of a population of roughly 3 million.

“The situation is critical with basic services – heating, water, electricity. Right now, 5,600 apartment buildings are without heating,” Klitschko told The Times. Authorities have had to drain the city’s central heating and water system to prevent pipes from freezing and bursting.

The capital has faced rolling blackouts and minimal heating since an earlier Russian attack on Jan. 9. Early Tuesday, Kremlin forces launched about 470 drones, 47 cruise missiles, and a ballistic missile at Ukraine, hitting a thermal power plant in Kyiv and reversing repairs to the energy grid.

Klitschko accused Moscow of trying to “make a humanitarian catastrophe in our hometown, to make people freeze during the winter.” Residents report icy apartments where children cannot use toilets and condensation has frozen on windows.

Schools and nurseries remain closed, forcing parents to care for children in freezing homes. “I honestly don’t know how to cope when you can’t even use the toilet at home or keep your child warm. My daughter is three years old,” Oles, a 30-year-old Kyiv resident and architect, told Kyiv Post.

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M., a 25-year-old academic researcher, told Kyiv Post she had no heating, power, or water after waking up Tuesday. “We didn’t have power for over 17 hours. Even the cat got cold – it’s 13°C [55°F] in the apartment,” she said.

Kateryna, a 33-year-old data scientist, said power briefly returned, allowing “a bit of cold water… enough to flush the toilet.” She added: “Being able to flush the toilet feels like a luxury.”

Tensions have flared between Kyiv’s mayor and President Volodymyr Zelensky, who blamed the city’s outages on local preparedness. Klitschko fired back, saying it was “not smart” to create political conflict during a crisis that requires national unity.