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People celebrate a birthday during a scheduled power outage in Santa Cruz del Norte, home to one of Cuba’s largest thermoelectric plants, late Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

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Yuliia Dolotova, 37, uses foam rubber to insulate her children’s bed in her apartment during a power outage caused by Russia’s repeated air strikes on the country’s power grid, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Sergey Grits)

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Yuliia Dolotova, 37, receives hot food at a distribution point during a power outage caused by Russia’s repeated air strikes on the country’s power grid, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Sergey Grits)

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Yuliia Dolotova, 37, pulls her son in his stroller up the stairs in an apartment block during a power outage caused by Russia’s repeated air strikes on the country’s power grid, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Sergey Grits)

Emergency power cuts swept across several Ukrainian cities as well as neighboring Moldova, officials said, following a commitment from the Kremlin to U.S. President Donald Trump to pause strikes on Kyiv as Ukraine continues to battle one of its bleakest winters in years. Ukraine’s Energy Minister, Denys Shmyhal, said that the outages had been caused by a technical malfunction affecting several power lines. The shortages follow weeks of Russian strikes against Ukraine’s already struggling energy grid, which have already triggered long stretches of severe power shortages. Moscow has sought to deny Ukrainian civilians heat, light and running water over the course of the war, in a strategy that Ukrainian officials describe as “weaponizing winter.”