KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Drone and missile attacks struck across Ukraine on Saturday, wounding at least nine people, as Kyiv and Moscow prepared for new talks next week with the United States.
Negotiators from Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. are to meet on Tuesday in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, for talks aimed at ending the war. The new round of negotiations would be the fourth brokered by the Trump administration, the most recent having been in Geneva in February.
Western governments backing the peace initiative are seeking a new formula to break the impasse while acknowledging that territorial and security questions remain unresolved.
The Russian missiles that hit overnight across the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, damaged homes and commercial properties, triggering new power and water outages, national and city authorities said.
Kateryna Korniichuk, 64, was at home with her granddaughter when an attack hit.
“The first blast wave threw us against that wall and then against the other wall, because we were in the corridor. It’s very hard. No sleep, no peace — nothing. The children aren’t sleeping, and neither are we," she told The Associated Press. “I’m old, I can handle it, but what have the children done wrong?”
Strikes also prompted officials to close Kyiv's 816-meter-long (892-yard-long) Northern Bridge, a major route connecting the city with large residential areas on the east bank of the Dnipro River.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that work was already underway to repair the city's Northern Bridge and that water pressure in Kyiv had been stabilized. Earlier Saturday, he had described the city's energy situation as "extremely difficult, affecting the city’s heating and water supply systems.”
Zelenskyy slams Russian attacks ahead of trilateral negotiations
In a statement Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia was preparing for trilateral talks by “launching ballistic missiles at Ukraine’s critical infrastructure.”
Later, he said that Moscow was stepping up strikes to build pressure on Ukraine ahead of the Abu Dhabi talks. “Russia perceives diplomacy in its own peculiar way – as a form of aggression,” he wrote in an online post.
The Ukrainian leader said that Russia fired 36 ballistic missiles at Kyiv and the surrounding region overnight, of which only four were shot down due to a lack of Patriot interceptors.
Zelenskyy also said that Russia had used North Korean-made ballistic missiles to strike energy facilities, citing preliminary findings from investigations at impact sites.
The barrage involved 172 drones over Kyiv and 12 other regions, wounding nine people, including a child, he said.
“When Russia tries to plunge Kyiv — a city of millions — and the entire country into a blackout, Ukraine must not be left to face this alone,” Zelenskyy said. He urged greater U.S. support and attention from Congress, calling for bipartisan backing for Ukraine and stronger sanctions on Russia.
Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said Saturday’s missile attacks damaged networks that carry electricity from nuclear power plants to Kyiv and central regions, as well as multiple other power facilities. It said outages were most widespread in the Kyiv and central Zhytomyr regions, as well as in the eastern regions of Kharkiv, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk.
The outages were separate from scheduled rolling blackouts imposed to protect the grid, which remain in effect across much of Ukraine.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense confirmed Saturday that it had targeted the Northern Bridge, saying that it facilitated the transport of weaponry, military hardware and specialist equipment for Ukraine’s armed forces.
It also said that it had targeted an industrial facility in the capital producing Flamingo missiles, as well as a power station, an electrical substation, and a plant producing ammunition, explosives and gunpowder in the wider Kyiv region. It also confirmed striking an electrical substation in the Zhytomyr region.
Death toll rises to 55 after the strike on aid center in Komyshuvakha
Meanwhile, in southern Ukraine, a recovery operation continued into its sixth day in the village of Komyshuvakha, devastated on Monday when multiple Russian guided bombs slammed into a former school and nearby shelter as residents waited for humanitarian aid.
Emergency services said they had recovered nine more bodies in the previous 24 hours, bringing the death toll early Saturday morning to 55. Dozens of people remain missing.
Village resident Mykola Krasnov, 72, said he was still looking for his wife but had heard no word from rescuers.
“She went to get humanitarian aid, and a three-ton bomb was dropped there. Where is she?” he said. “She didn’t come home, and they didn’t find her body there. She isn’t in the morgue, and she isn’t here alive.”
The village of Komyshuvakha is located near the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region.
Ukrainian attack on Russia's Belgorod region kills 1 person
A Ukrainian attack killed one person in Russia’s Belgorod region when a drone hit a private home in the town of Grayvoron, local officials said Saturday.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said its forces shot down 411 Ukrainian drones overnight over 10 Russian regions, including Belgorod. Drones were also destroyed over the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and the Black and Azov Seas, it said.
The head of Russia’s southwestern Saratov region, Gov. Roman Busargin, wrote on social media that a drone attack damaged “civilian infrastructure” and several residential buildings in the area. Russian media outlets later reported that the Saratov Oil Refinery had been hit and shared images of plumes of smoke over the city.
The head of Russia’s Oryol region, Gov. Andrey Klychkov, also said Saturday that a Ukrainian attack had damaged commercial warehouse and production sites in the regional capital, as cited by state media.
Russian media outlets reported that a Ukrainian attack sparked a blaze at Oryol’s Proton-Electrotex plant, which produces components for military equipment.
Vasilisa Stepanenko in Komyshuvakha, Ukraine, and Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed to this report.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
