Vladimir Putin has broken a promise to Donald Trump to halt aerial attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure just hours after making the pledge.

During a call between the two leaders on Tuesday, Putin said he had told Trump he would immediately order his military to halt attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Ukraine had already agreed to the proposal during talks with the US in Saudi Arabia a week previously.

But shortly afterward, Russian drones knocked out the electricity for parts of the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk. Russia proceeded to fire around 150 missiles and drones at targets across Ukraine overnight, hitting civilian homes and medical facilities.

Moscow accused Ukraine of doing the same after state media reports suggested Ukrainian drones had hit an oil facility in the Russian region of Krasnodar. The Independent could not verify this claim nor the footage provided by state media purporting to show the aftermath of the attack.

But the two sides have been exchanging aerial attacks on energy infrastructure for more than a year.

Ukraine started striking deep into mainland Russia at the beginning of 2024 in an attempt to disrupt Moscow’s Russian oil and gas flows and the revenue it derives from sales of energy abroad. Russia, meanwhile, has been bombing Ukraine’s energy infrastructure since October 2022.

The Kremlin’s primary aim, experts say, is to destroy Ukrainian morale and cripple Kyiv’s economy. The rate of strikes often jumps during the winter months as Russia literally tries to force Ukrainians into the cold.

Between March and September last year, Russia launched nine long-range attacks on Ukraine’s electric power system, according to United Nations estimates. “The strikes had reverberating effects causing harm to the civilian population,” the UN wrote.

The largest of those attacks, on 26 August, killed seven people and left dozens more wounded. Russia fired 127 missiles and 109 drones, around half of which were destroyed. More than half of Ukraine was hit, with swathes of the country plunged into blackouts.

A year earlier, in December 2023, Russia unleashed one of its most devastating air attacks of the war on Ukraine, killing 31 civilians, wounding more than 160 others and hitting cities and infrastructure across the country.

In early June 2023, the Russians blew up and completely destroyed the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant, causing the Dnipro River’s banks to burst. Thousands of homes were flooded. Damages from the dam’s destruction are currently estimated at $586 million.

These attacks have extended to nuclear sites. In February, a Russian drone struck the former nuclear power plant at Chernobyl.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, said that its team at the site heard a large explosion shortly before 2am local time.

While radiation levels were kept under control, experts cautioned that Russia was acting recklessly.

“We’re getting closer and closer to possible disaster,” Serhii Plokhy, who tells the story of the occupation of Chernboyl in his 2024 book Chernobyl Roulette, told The Independent later that month.

Citywide blackouts across Ukraine have left civilians without access to electricity for significant chunks of the day.

In a paper published last month, the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), estimated that the total damages to Ukraine’s energy sector after three years of Russia’s full-scale invasion is $14.6 billion (£11.3 bn).

All the country’s coal-fired power plants and hydroelectric plants under Ukrainian control have been damaged since February 2022. At least 20 combined heat and power plants have been hit.

At least nine thermal power plant units have been damaged, and one of them was completely destroyed as a result of a direct Russian missile hit.

KSE writes that the costs of restoring these facilities are likely to “significantly exceed the estimated damages due to significant physical wear and tear and technological obsolescence of damaged and destroyed equipment.”