Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital with missiles and drones on Saturday morning, killing at least one person and wounding 27, local authorities said, a day before talks between Ukraine and the United States.
Explosions could be heard across Kyiv for hours as ballistic missiles and drones hit the city. The violence began in the early-morning hours and continued as day broke.
The attack came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was set to meet Prime Minister Mark Carney in Halifax on Saturday before heading to Florida for talks with U.S. President Donald Trump, in an effort to end the nearly four-year-old Russia-Ukraine war.
Zelenskyy said he and Trump plan to discuss issues including security guarantees and territorial issues in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions of in eastern Ukraine.
The Russian Defence Ministry said Saturday that it carried out a “massive strike” overnight.
It said Russia used “long-range precision-guided weapons from land, air and sea, including Kinzhal hypersonic aeroballistic missiles” and drones, on energy infrastructure facilities “used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” as well as “Ukrainian military-industrial complex enterprises.”
The ministry said the strike came in response to Ukraine’s attacks on “civilian objects” in Russia.
Earlier on Saturday, the ministry said its air defences shot down seven Ukrainian drones over the Russian regions of Krasnodar and Adygeya overnight.
Zelenskyy criticizes latest attacks
Poland scrambled fighter jets and closed airports in Lublin and Rzeszow, near the border with Ukraine, for several hours during the Russian attacks, Poland’s armed forces command said on social media platform X. There was no violation of Polish airspace, it said.
Civil aviation authority Pansa said the two airports had since resumed operations. It was unclear what caused the alert in Poland when the Russian attacks were focused on Kyiv, which is far from the border.
“Today Russia demonstrated how it responds to peace talks between Ukraine and the United States on ending Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said to reporters via audio note while travelling. “They carried out massive attacks on Ukraine precisely as we move toward peace negotiations. That is Russia’s response.”
Russia targeted Ukraine with 519 drones and 40 missiles, Ukraine’s air force said. The main target was energy and civilian infrastructure in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said, adding that in some districts of the region, there is no electricity or heating because of the attacks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his hours-long year-end news conference in which he repeated dubious claims about Ukraine starting the ongoing war between the two countries and also claims Russia is ready for peace.
“There have been many questions these days. Where is the Russian response to the proposals to end the war, which were made by the United States and the world?” Zelenskyy said. “Russian representatives hold long talks — in reality the ‘Kinzal’ and ‘Shaheds’ speak for them.”
The attack damaged more than 10 damaged residential buildings, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said in a post on Telegram. People were being evacuated from under the rubble of collapsed buildings.
‘I can’t believe it’: Resident witnesses man killed
Olena Karpenko, 52, heard a man as he burned to death in the attack. “His scream is still in my ears. I can’t believe it,” she said, weeping.
Karpenko said they heard a sudden explosion at the nearby thermal power plant, followed by a stronger blast that shook the windows of her home. Then came the hit on her building.
“I saw how the apartment was burning, there was a fire and we heard a man’s screams, begging for help,” she said.
Two children were among those wounded in the attack, which affected seven locations across the capital, the head of Kyiv’s City Military Administration, Tymur Tkachenko, said in a statement on Telegram. A body was found under the rubble of one damaged building, Klymenko, the interior minister, said.
Rubble surrounds a building hit in the Russian strike in Kyiv on Saturday as rescue workers attend to the devastation. (Evgeniy Maloletka/The Associated Press)
A fire broke out in an 18-storey residential building in the Dnipro district of the city, and emergency crews rushed to the scene to contain the flames.
A 24-storey residential building in the Darnytsia district was also hit, Tkachenko said, and more fires broke out in the Obolonskyi and Holosiivsky districts.
In the wider Kyiv region, the strikes hit industrial and residential buildings, according to Ukraine’s Emergency Service.
In the Vyshhorod area, emergency crews rescued one person found under the rubble of a destroyed house.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, met with U.S. President Donald Trump, Vice-President JD Vance and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, right to left in the background, at the White House in October. Zelenskyy and Trump are set to meet in Florida on Sunday. (Alex Brandon/The Associated Press)
Zelenskyy told reporters in the WhatsApp chat with journalists that when talking to Trump on Sunday, he would aim to ensure there were “as few unresolved issues as possible” while respecting Ukraine’s red lines.
“I am confident there are compromise proposals — we know the Americans — and, obviously, our enemy also always has its own goals, which we know well.”
Zelenskyy said he would prioritize discussing security guarantees for Ukraine. The U.S. has committed to providing guarantees that mirror the NATO alliance’s Article 5, which means an attack on Ukraine would trigger a collective military response from the U.S. and its allies. But key details need to be worked out.
Territorial concessions are the most sensitive issues the two leaders will discuss, including the Donetsk region and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Zelenskyy reiterated that Ukraine would never recognize any territory as Russian “under any circumstances.”
“But the most important issue I want to stress today is security guarantees. Beyond territorial issues and the ZNPP [Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant], security guarantees are critically important for us.”
Zelenskyy will also speak to European leaders online to brief them on the discussions.