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Russia attacked the Ukrainian capital with missiles and drones early Saturday morning, killing one person and injuring 27 others, a day before talks between Ukraine and the United States, local authorities said.
Explosions erupted in Kyiv for hours as ballistic missiles and drones struck the city. The attack began early in the morning on Saturday and continued until daybreak.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday it carried out a “massive strike” overnight, using “long-range precision-guided land, air and sea weapons, including hypersonic Kinzhal aeroballistic missiles” and drones, against energy infrastructure “used by the Ukrainian armed forces,” as well as “enterprises of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex.”
The ministry said the strike was in response to Ukraine’s attacks on “civilian objects” in Russia.
Earlier on Saturday, the ministry said its air defenses shot down seven Ukrainian drones over Russia’s Krasnodar and Adygeya regions overnight.
Poland deployed warplanes and closed airports in Lublin and Rzeszow, near the border with Ukraine, for several hours during the Russian attacks, the command of the country’s armed forces said on X. There were no violations of Polish airspace, it said. Civil aviation authority Pansa said both airports had since resumed operations. It is unclear what triggered the alert in Poland when Russian attacks focused on kyiv, located far from the border.
Russia targeted Ukraine with nearly 500 drones and 40 missiles of different types, Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post. The main target was energy and civil infrastructure in Kyiv, he said. In some districts of the region, there is no electricity or heating because of the attacks, he added.
The attack took place while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepares to meet US President Donald Trump Sunday in Florida to continue talks aimed at ending the nearly four-year-old war.
“Many questions are being asked these days. What is the Russian response to the proposals to end the war made by the United States and the world?” » said Zelensky. “The Russian representatives are conducting long negotiations; in reality, the “Kinzals” and the “Shaheds” are speaking on their behalf.”
“His cry is still in my ears”
More than ten residential buildings were damaged in the attack, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said in a message posted on Telegram. People were evacuated under the rubble of collapsed buildings.
Olena Karpenko, 52, heard as a man burned to death in the attack. “His cry is still in my ears. I can’t believe it,” she said, crying.
Karpenko said he heard a sudden explosion at the nearby thermal power plant, followed by a louder explosion that shook the windows of his house. Then came the attack on his building.
Efrem Lukatsky / AP 
“I saw the apartment burning, there was a fire and we heard the cries of a man begging for help,” she said.
Two children were among those injured in the attack, which hit seven locations in the capital, the head of kyiv’s military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, said in a statement on Telegram. A body was found under the rubble of a damaged building, he said.
“In fact, the entire center of kyiv was attacked by drones,” he said, adding that Russia was sending the message that it was “raising the stakes in this war.”
A fire broke out in an 18-story residential building in the Dnipro district and emergency teams rushed to the scene to contain the flames. A 24-story residential building in the Darnytsia district was also hit, Tkachenko said, and other fires broke out in the Obolonskyi and Holosiivsky districts.
In the kyiv region, the strikes hit industrial and residential buildings, according to Ukrainian emergency services. In the Vyshhorod region, emergency teams rescued a person found under the rubble of a destroyed house.
Zelensky goes to meet Trump
Zelenskyy told reporters on a messaging app that he would meet Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and “talk online with European leaders” during a stopover in Canada en route to the United States, according to AFP.
Zelensky also said he would work to ensure there were “as few unresolved issues as possible” during his talks with Trump, while respecting Ukraine’s red lines.
“I am convinced that there are compromise proposals – we know the Americans – and, obviously, our enemy always also has his own objectives, which we know well,” he said.
Zelenskyy said he would prioritize talks on security guarantees for Ukraine. The United States has committed to providing guarantees that reflect Article 5 of the NATO alliance, meaning that an attack on Ukraine would trigger a collective military response from the United States and its allies. But key details need to be ironed out.
Territorial concessions are the most sensitive issue the two leaders will discuss in particular the Donetsk region and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Zelensky reiterated that Ukraine would never recognize any territory as Russian “under any circumstances.”
“But the most important issue I want to emphasize today is security guarantees. Beyond territorial issues and the ZNPP (nuclear power plant), security guarantees are of crucial importance for us,” he said.
