kyiv, Ukraine (AP) — Drone and missile attacks hit Ukraine on Saturday, injuring at least nine people, as kyiv and Moscow prepared to new discussions next week with the United States.
Negotiators from Russia, Ukraine and the United States are to meet on Tuesday in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, for negotiations aimed at end the war. This new round of negotiations would be the fourth organized by the Trump administration, the most recent having taken place in Geneva in February.
Western governments supporting the peace initiative are seeking a new formula to break the impasse while recognizing that territorial and security issues remain unresolved.
The Russian missiles which struck the Ukrainian capital during the night, Kyivdamaged homes and commercial properties, triggering further power and water outages, state and municipal authorities said.
Kateryna Korniichuk, 64, was at home with her granddaughter when an attack took place.
“The first shock wave threw us against this wall, then against the other wall, because we were in the corridor. It’s very hard. No sleep, no peace, nothing. The children don’t sleep, and neither do we,” she told the Associated Press. “I’m old, I can handle it, but what have the children done wrong?
The strikes also prompted authorities to close kyiv’s 816-meter-long (892-meter) North Bridge, a major road connecting the city to large residential areas on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River.
Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said work was already underway to repair the city’s northern bridge and that water pressure in kyiv had been stabilized. Earlier on Saturday, he described the city’s energy situation as “extremely difficult, affecting the city’s heating and water supply systems.”
Zelensky denounces Russian attacks ahead of trilateral talks
In a statement Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia was preparing for trilateral talks by “launching ballistic missiles at Ukraine’s critical infrastructure.”
He then said Moscow was stepping up its strikes to put pressure on Ukraine ahead of the Abu Dhabi talks. “Russia perceives diplomacy in its own way – as a form of aggression,” he wrote in an online article.
The Ukrainian leader said Russia fired 36 ballistic missiles overnight at kyiv and the surrounding region, only four of which were shot down due to a lack of Patriot interceptors.
Zelensky also said Russia used North Korean-made ballistic missiles to strike energy facilities, citing preliminary results of surveys of impact sites.
The barrage involved 172 drones over kyiv and 12 other regions, injuring nine people, including a child, it said.
“As Russia attempts to plunge kyiv – a city of millions – and the entire country into blackout, Ukraine must not be left alone to face this situation,” Zelenskyy said. He called for greater U.S. support and attention from Congress, calling for bipartisan support for Ukraine and tougher sanctions against Russia.
Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said Saturday’s missile attacks damaged networks that carry electricity from nuclear power plants to kyiv and the central regions, as well as several other electrical installations. Outages are more widespread in the kyiv and central Zhytomyr regions, as well as in the eastern regions of Kharkiv, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk.
These outages are distinct from scheduled periodic outages imposed to protect the grid, which remain in effect across much of Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed on Saturday that it had targeted the Northern Bridge, saying it facilitated the transport of weapons, military hardware and specialized equipment for Ukraine’s armed forces.
It also said it had targeted an industrial facility in the capital producing Flamingo missiles, as well as a power plant, an electrical substation and a factory producing munitions, explosives and gunpowder in the kyiv region. He also confirmed the strike on an electricity substation in the Zhytomyr region.
Death toll rises to 55 after attack on Komyshuvakha humanitarian center
Meanwhile, in southern Ukraine, a recovery operation continued for six days. village of Komyshuvakhadevastated on Monday when several Russian guided bombs hit a former school and a nearby shelter as residents waited for humanitarian aid.
Emergency services said they had found nine more bodies in the previous 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 55 as of Saturday morning. Dozens of people are still missing.
Mykola Krasnov, 72, a resident of the village, said he was still looking for his wife but had not received any news 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’s not in the morgue and she’s not here alive.”
The village of Komyshuvakha is located near the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region.
Ukrainian attack on Russian Belgorod region leaves one dead
A Ukrainian attack killed one person in Russia’s Belgorod region when a drone struck a private house in the town of Grayvoron, local officials said Saturday.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces shot down 411 Ukrainian drones overnight in 10 Russian regions, including Belgorod. Drones were also destroyed over Ukraine’s annexed Crimean Peninsula and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, the statement said.
The head of Russia’s southwest Saratov region, Governor Roman Busargin, wrote on social media that a drone attack had damaged “civil infrastructure” and several residential buildings in the area. Russian media later reported that the Saratov oil refinery had been hit and shared images of plumes of smoke above the city.
The head of Russia’s Orel region, Governor Andrei Klychkov, also said on Saturday that a Ukrainian attack had damaged commercial warehouses and production sites in the regional capital, as cited by state media.
Russian media reported that a Ukrainian attack sparked a fire at the Proton-Electrotex factory in Oryol, which produces components for military equipment.
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Vasilisa Stepanenko in Komyshuvakha, Ukraine, and Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed to this report.
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Follow AP coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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