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ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) —Ethiopia'sgovernment Tuesday for the first time acknowledged the involvement of troops from neighboring Eritrea in the war in the Tigray region that ended in 2022, accusing them of mass killings, amid reports ofrenewed fightingin the region.

Ethiopian Prime MinisterAbiy Ahmed, while addressing parliament Tuesday, accused Eritrean troops fighting alongside Ethiopian forces of mass killings in the war, during which more than 400,000 people are estimated to have died.

Eritrean and Ethiopian troops fought against regional forces in the northern Tigray region in a war that ended in 2022 with the signing of a peace agreement.

Eritrea's Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel told The Associated Press that Ahmed's comments were "cheap and despicable lies" and did not merit a response.

Both nations have been accusing each other of provoking a potential civil war, with landlocked Ethiopia saying thatEritreais arming and funding rebel groups, while Eritrea says Ethiopia's aspiration is to gain access to a seaport.

"The rift did not begin with the Red Sea issue, as many people think," Ahmed told parliamentarians. "It started in the first round of the war in Tigray, when the Eritrean army followed us into Shire and began demolishing houses, massacred our youth in Axum, looted factories in Adwa, and uprooted our factories."

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"The Red Sea and Ethiopia cannot remain separated forever," he added.

Ethiopia lost sovereign access to the Red Sea when Eritrea seceded in 1993 after decades of guerrilla warfare.

Gebremeskel said the prime minister has only recently changed his tune in his push for access to the Red Sea.

Ahmed "and his top military brass were profusely showering praises and State Medals on the Eritrea army and its senior officers. … But when he later developed the delusional malaise of 'sovereignty access to the sea' and an agenda of war against Eritrea, he began to sing to a different chorus," he said.

Eritrea and Ethiopia initially made peace after Abiy came to power in 2018, with Abiy winning a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts toward reconciliation.

In June, Eritrea accused Ethiopia of having a "long-brewing war agenda" aimed at seizing its Red Sea ports. Ethiopia recently said that Eritrea was "actively preparing to wage war against it."

Analysts say an alliance between Eritrea and regional forces in the troubled Tigray region may be forming, as fighting has been reported in recent weeks. Flights by the national carrier to the region were canceled last week over the renewed clashes.

Russia launched its biggest missile and drone attack on Ukraine so far this year on Tuesday, according to Ukrainian authorities, cutting heat to tens of thousands of people and ending a brief reprieve agreed to by Moscow and Washington as Ukrainians grapple with plummeting winter temperatures.

CNN staff in the capital Kyiv reported hearing several strong explosions in the city and authorities in Dnipro, Kharkiv, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia and Odesa reported Russian strikes.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that Ukraine is waiting for US reaction to Russia's latest wave of attacks on Ukraine's power grid.

"We are expecting the United States to respond about the Russian strikes. It was America's proposal to suspend strikes on energy facilities during this period of diplomacy and cold winter weather," Zelensky said in his nightly address.

Russian President Vladimir Putin last week agreed to pause attacking major Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure until Sunday, following a "personal request" from US President Donald Trump, according to the Kremlin.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump was unsurprised about Russia's recent attacks on Ukraine.

Speaking to reporters outside the West Wing, Leavitt said "I spoke with the president about it this morning, and his reaction was, unfortunately, unsurprised."

She said planned negotiations between Russia and Ukraine would proceed later this week in Abu Dhabi, with the US in a mediating role.

The pause also came following trilateral talks between Russia, Ukraine and the US in Abu Dhabi, the first such talks since Moscow's invasion in February 2022.

Zelensky said Russia's attack was focused on energy facilities across at least six regions and involved 70 missiles and 450 attack drones, which according to a CNN tally, is the largest attack of the year so far.

"Taking advantage of the coldest days of winter to terrorize people is more important to Russia than turning to diplomacy," Zelensky said Tuesday.

"The Russian army exploited the US proposal to briefly halt strikes not to support diplomacy, but to stockpile missiles and wait until the coldest days of the year, when temperatures across large parts of Ukraine drop below -20°C (-4°F)," Zelensky later added in a social media post.

Almost 1,200 high-rise buildings across two districts in the capital Kyiv were left without heat due to the strikes, according to mayor Vitaliy Klitschko.

Several multi-storey residential buildings and a kindergarten had been damaged and six people were injured, according to Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the Kyiv military administration.

One resident of a building in Kyiv that was damaged overnight told CNN that she felt Russia's attacks on residential infrastructure were "all being done on purpose to make people kind of give up."

"I couldn't imagine that in such cold weather they could hit residential buildings," said Tetyana, who gave her first name only.

Video posted by the State Emergency Service shows flames billowing out of a high-rise residential block and response teams working through the night in freezing conditions.

In southern Ukraine's Odesa, more than 50,000 people were left without power, the regional military administration said. The country's second largest city Kharkiv was attacked by Russian missiles and drones that targeted the city's energy infrastructure, causing damage that will leave at least 820 high-rise buildings without heat supply, Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram. And Dnipro, in eastern Ukraine, was attacked by ballistic missiles, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.

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"The goal is obvious: to cause maximum damage and leave the city without heat in severe frost," Terekhov said.

Kyiv residents spent 7 hours under an air raid alert, and the attack came as Ukrainians contend with some of the coldest temperatures this winter. On early Tuesday morning local time, the temperature in Kyiv was -20 Celsius ( - 4 Fahrenheit) and in Kharkiv -25 C (-13 F).

Residents could be seen taking shelter at the Kyiv metro bundled up in thick coats and hats, and huddled under sleeping bags and blankets.

This is the first time that strikes have been reported on energy facilities and major cities since last Thursday, according to Ukrainian authorities, though Russia continued to strike logistics routes and transport infrastructure during that time, withdeadly results.

"This is not a side effect of war. It is Russian strategy. Winter temperatures (being) used as a weapon. Heat and electricity as targets," EU Ambassador to Ukraine, Katarina Mathernova, wrote in a statement, alongside a photo of herself sheltering overnight in her bathroom. "Every night, I think of the millions of people across the country shivering in their homes."

Other attacks on Tuesday extended beyond power stations. In Zaporizhzhia, drone strikes damaged a building, cars and shops. The strikes killed two teenagers and injured eight others, according to Ivan Fedorov, the head of the region's military administration.

"The air raid alert in Zaporizhzhia has been in effect for 23 hours straight," Fedorov wrote in a post on Telegram. "As soon as the security situation allows, we will begin assessing the damage. But, unfortunately, human lives cannot be brought back."

'Survival mode'

Before the Abu Dhabi talks, Russia had stepped up attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, leaving swaths of the country facing power shortages and outages in the depths of winter.

The Kremlin has confirmed that the next round of trilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia and the United States aimed at ending the war will take place on Wednesday and Thursday in Abu Dhabi.

Ukraine's biggest private energy company DTEK said the attack early Tuesday hit thermal power plants, damaging critical energy infrastructure and equipment "at a time when heat and electricity are essential."

DTEK's CEO Maxim Timchenko postedfootageTuesday showing the aftermath of an attack on a power plant at an undisclosed location, where the energy facility had been reduced to a pile of mangled metal and charred concrete.

The company is in "survival mode," Timchenko earlier told CNN, with the next few weeks critical as the country grapples with plummeting temperature and the "worst condition of our energy system in modern history."

DTEK currently operates five thermal power plants in Ukraine, of which two are currently offline and the other three are functioning at low capacity, Timchenko told CNN Monday in an interview from Dnipro.

He said the company was working to repair the damage from repeated Russian attacks, but it's often not possible in freezing weather conditions.

His biggest hope right now is that the energy ceasefire announced last week, which he says brought a five-day reprieve in attacks on DTEK's thermal power plants, is extended in talks in Abu Dhabi this week.

DTEK said Sunday that Moscow had launched a "large-scale attack" on its coal mines in the region, striking a bus carrying miners who had just finished their shift killing at least 12.

CNN's Helen Regan, Lauren Kent, Clare Sebastian, Svitlana Vlasova, Max Saltman and Kevin Liptak contributed reporting.

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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Immigration officers with guns drawn arrested activists who were trailing their vehicles on Tuesday in Minneapolis, while education leaders described anxiety and fear in Minnesota schools from the ongoing federal sweeps.

Both are signs that tension remains in the Minneapolis area after the departure ofhigh-profile commanderGreg Bovino of U.S. Board Patrol and the arrival of Trump administration border czar Tom Homan, which followed thefatal shootingof protester Alex Pretti.

"There's less smoke on the ground," Gov. Tim Walz said, referring to tear gas and other irritants used by officers against protesters, "but I think it's more chilling than it was last week because of the shift to the schools, the shift to the children."

At least one person who had an anti-ICE message on clothing was handcuffed while face-down on the ground. An Associated Press photographer witnessed the arrests.

ICE agents are changing their tactics

Federal agents in the Twin Cities lately have been conducting more targeted immigration arrests at homes and neighborhoods, rather than staging in parking lots. The convoys have been harder to find and less aggressive. Alerts in activist group chats have been more about sightings than immigration-related detainments.

Several cars followed officers through south Minneapolis after there were reports of them knocking at homes. Officers stopped their vehicles and ordered activists to come out of a car at gunpoint. Agents told reporters at the scene to stay back and threatened to use pepper spray.

A federal judge last month putlimits on how officerstreat motorists who are following them but not obstructing their operations. Safely following agents "at an appropriate distance does not, by itself, create reasonable suspicion to justify a vehicle stop," the judge said. An appeals court, however, set the order aside.

Bovino, who was leading immigration enforcement in Minneapolis and other big U.S. cities, left town last week, shortly after Pretti's death became thesecond local killingof a U.S. citizen in January.

Homan, who was dispatched to Minnesota to succeed Bovino, haswarned that protesterscould face consequences if they interfere with officers.

Operation Metro Surge affecting schools

Walz and education leaders held a news conference to say the presence of immigration officers is frightening some school communities. Brenda Lewis, superintendent of Fridley Public Schools in suburban Minneapolis, said she's been followed twice by ICE agents since speaking publicly and that school board members have had ICE vehicles outside their homes for hours.

"Students are afraid to come to school, parents are afraid to drop them off," Lewis, a U.S. citizen, said. "Staff are coming to work wondering if today will be the day something happens in one of our buildings."

She said Fridley, which has Somali and Ecuadorian families, has added security and trained observers, adjusted drop-off procedures and increased mental health support. Tracy Xiong, a social worker in the Columbia Heights district, said she's been coordinating grocery deliveries to school families and finding volunteers to drive children.

There was no immediate response to a request for comment from the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement about the arrests in south Minneapolis and the concerns of educators.

Grand jury seeks communications, records

Meanwhile, Tuesday was the deadline for Minneapolis to produce information for a federal grand jury. It's part of a U.S. Justice Department request for records of any effort to stifle the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Officials have denounced it as a bullying tactic.

"We have done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide, but when the federal government weaponizes the criminal justice system against political opponents, it's important to stand up and fight back," said Ally Peters, spokesperson for Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat.

She said the city was complying, but she didn't elaborate. Other state and local offices run by Democrats were given subpoenas, though it's not known whether they had the same deadline. People familiar with the matter have told the AP that the subpoenas arerelated to an investigationinto whether Minnesota officials obstructed enforcement through public statements.

No release for man in Omar incident

Elsewhere, a man charged with squirting apple cider vinegar on Democratic U.S. Rep.Ilhan Omarwill remain in jail. U.S. Magistrate Judge David Schultz granted a federal prosecutor's request to keep Anthony Kazmierczak in custody.

"We simply cannot have protesters and people — whatever side of the aisle they're on — running up to representatives who are conducting official business, and holding town halls, and assaulting them," Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Bejar said Tuesday.

Defense attorney John Fossum said the vinegar posed a low risk to Omar. He said Kazmierczak's health problems weren't being properly addressed in jail and that his release would be appropriate.

Raza reported from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. AP reporters Ed White in Detroit and Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed.