Drones, missiles pound Kyiv as Zelenskiy, Trump to meet
Russia has attacked Kiev and other parts of Ukraine with hundreds of missiles and drones ahead of what President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said will be a key meeting with US President Donald Trump to work on a plan to end the nearly four-year war.
Zelenskiy cited the massive night attack, which involved nearly 500 drones and 40 missiles and knocked out power and heat in parts of the capital, as Russia’s response to ongoing peace efforts brokered by Washington.
The Ukrainian leader said Sunday’s talks in Florida will focus on security guarantees and territorial control once Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II, which began when Russia invaded its smaller neighbor in 2022, ends.
The attack continued throughout the morning, with an air raid alert lasting nearly 10 hours for the capital. Authorities said that 2 people died and at least 46 people, including 2 children, were injured in Kiev and the surrounding region.
“Today, Russia showed how it responds to peaceful negotiations between Ukraine and the United States to end Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Zelenskiy told reporters.
Russian air defense forces shot down eight UAVs heading for Moscow, the city’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said on Saturday.
Explosions echoed through Kiev in the early hours of Saturday as Ukraine’s air defense units took action. Russian drones targeted the capital and areas in the northeast and south, the air force said.
State grid operator Ukrenergo said energy facilities across Ukraine were hit and emergency power outages were imposed in the capital.
Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said the attack left more than a million households in Kiev and surrounding areas without electricity, 750,000 of which were disconnected by the afternoon.
Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said that more than 40 percent of the residences in Kiev remained unheated as the temperature remained around 0 degrees on Saturday.
On his way to Florida to meet Trump, Zelenskiy stopped in Halifax, Canada, where he met with Prime Minister Mark Carney and then planned to meet with European leaders.
Making a short statement next to Zelenskiy, Carney noted that peace “requires a willing Russia.”
Announcing that he would provide 2.5 billion Canadian dollars (A$2.73 billion) in additional economic aid to Ukraine, he said: “The barbarism we saw throughout the night – the attack on Kiev – shows how important it is for us to stand with Ukraine at this difficult time.”
The territory and future of the Russian-occupied Zaporozhye nuclear power plant remain diplomatic hurdles, although Zelensky told reporters in Kiev on Friday that the 20-point draft document, the cornerstone of the US effort to finalize the peace deal, was 90 percent complete.
He said the form of U.S. security guarantees is crucial and that they will depend on Trump and “what he is prepared to give, when he is prepared to give it, and for how long.”
Zelenskiy told Axios earlier this week that the United States has offered a 15-year agreement subject to renewal on security guarantees, but Kiev wants a longer agreement with legally binding provisions to guard against further Russian aggression.
Trump said that the driving force behind the process was the United States.
“You don’t have anything until I approve it,” Trump told Politico. “Then we’ll see what you’ve got.”
Trump said he believes Sunday’s meeting will go well. He also said he expected to talk to Putin “soon, as much as I want.”
Moscow is demanding that Ukraine withdraw from the large, heavily urbanized part of the eastern region of Donetsk that Russian troops have failed to occupy in nearly four years of war. Kyiv wants clashes to stop on existing lines.
Russia continues to slowly advance through 2025 at the cost of significant losses on the drone-infested battlefield.
On Saturday both sides made conflicting claims about two frontline towns: Myrnohrad in the east and Huliaipole in the south. Moscow claimed to have captured both, while Kiev said it had repelled Russian attacks there.
