Why this mattersSo let's talk about why Kryvyi Rih matters.
It's not just any city. It's Volodymyr Zelenskyy's hometown. It's also one of Ukraine's biggest industrial centres.
And the timing here is strange.
Russia, Ukraine and the United States just sat down together for nearly four hours in Abu Dhabi. Their first trilateral talks in nine months.
Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, called it very productive. Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it constructive and quite substantive.
A second day of those same talks is happening right now. In the same hours this strike is being cleaned up.
So while the talking is happening, the drones are still flying.
And this isn't new. Every winter since the war started, Russia has gone after Ukraine's power, heating and water, right as the cold comes in.
The Associated Press says Moscow is trying to break Ukrainians' will by battering the power grid before winter properly hits.
Kryvyi Rih has already felt this. A month ago, a Russian strike hit a hospital in the middle of the city and injured two people.
Here's Oleksandr Vilkul, in his own words. He says quote "The city is partially without electricity".
He also says water and sewage are being stabilised with generators, and that heating will be harder to restore.
That's a city official telling people straight — power, water and warmth are all running on borrowed time.
No Russian official has said anything about this strike. Russia hasn't confirmed it. Russia hasn't denied it either.
So what don't we know? How long the power stays out. How bad the heating damage really is. And whether this was part of a bigger, coordinated attack across other cities overnight.
And here's the big question underneath all of it.
If Russia keeps hitting Ukraine's energy grid while its own officials sit in peace talks, what does that tell you about what those talks are actually for?
