Deadly Strikes and Deep Freeze Grip Ukraine as Talks Loom (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Four people have been killed in the central Cherkasy region after Russia launched a massive bombardment overnight. It comes after Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced Sunday's deadly attack on a bus carrying minors as a telling crime. He said it showed that Russia bore responsibility for an escalation. Twelve people were killed and at least 16 others injured in the attack on the bus in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Ukrainian officials say it was targeted with drones. President Zelensky has announced a new round of US-brokered talks between Ukraine and Russia that will take place in Abu Dhabi. They start on Wednesday. They'll last for two days. We've been reporting extensively on this huge cold snap. Now it's been so extreme in Ukraine. Temperatures plunging below minus 20 Celsius in parts of the country. Emergency crews racing to restore heating and electricity to millions of homes after the power grid was damaged by Russian attacks. Sarah Rainsford is in Ukraine for us.

[00:01:00] Speaker 2: Scoops of stew that bring a burst of warmth to Ukrainians whose homes are almost as cold as the streets here. This help is in big demand because here in Kiev hundreds of tower blocks still have no heating at all. Since Russia has attacked Ukraine's power plants repeatedly and turned winter itself into a weapon.

[00:01:26] Speaker 3: The next few days will be minus 20 at night so I'll go and sleep in the local school. In the day it's okay because you move around a bit but at night it's really cold.

[00:01:39] Speaker 2: Four years of all-out war have hardened people here but even so this winter is tough.

[00:01:48] Speaker 4: What I'm wearing now that's what I sleep in so I hope to God we get the heating back. I ask Fyodor what Russia wants to achieve. They won't get what they want. We're stronger than Russia in any case.

[00:02:05] Speaker 2: When the siren sounds for an air raid no one even moves. The danger is real though. The soot stains up the wall are from a drone attack. Lyudmila tells me she's ashamed to live on handouts but she's angry too.

[00:02:26] Speaker 4: We thought we would get the power back but there is nothing just the cold. I don't want to say this but I wish they would freeze in Russia too. Let Putin freeze like us.

[00:02:42] Speaker 2: They're freezing over on the other side of Kyiv as well. This gives you an idea of just how extreme the conditions here are. The pipes in this building burst this morning and the water has frozen in sheets right down the front of the block. I mean I've seen big icicles but this is something else. The temperature here right now is minus 12 degrees. It is bitterly cold. With no power and no lift it's a dark climb to Alena's flat on the eighth floor. She tells me it flooded a week ago when the pipes first burst and there's no way to dry it out without heating.

[00:03:28] Speaker 5: I don't understand what we are going to do if we don't get the heating back. People are freezing. There's lots of small children here and pensioners with nowhere to go.

[00:03:42] Speaker 2: Russia did pause its strikes for a few days but that truce is over and Ukrainians know this winter could still get worse. Sarah Rainsford, BBC News, Kyiv.