Ukraine’s foreign minister said temperatures hovered around freezing on Saturday morning, and airstrikes left a third of Kiev without heating.
President Putin rejects compromise on Ukraine at year-end press conference
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia has no intention of easing its demands for Ukraine to abandon NATO membership and leave occupied territories.
Russia attacked Ukraine with hundreds of missiles and drones on Saturday, ahead of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy who said he would hold key talks with US President Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday to hammer out a deal to end the nearly four-year war.
President Zelenskyy said Russia’s response to ongoing peace efforts brokered by Washington was a massive night attack on Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine that involved around 500 drones and 40 missiles and cut off power and heat in parts of the capital.
Ahead of the attack, the Ukrainian leader spoke of talks with President Trump that are expected to focus on territory controlled by both sides after the fighting ends in Europe’s worst conflict since World War II, which began in 2022 with Russia’s invasion of its smaller neighbor.
The attack continued throughout the morning, and the nearly 10-hour air raid warning for the capital ended at 11:20 local time (0920 GMT). Authorities said one person was killed in the attack in the Kyiv region and at least 19 people were injured, including two children, in the capital itself.
“If Russia turns even the Christmas and New Year period into a period of destroyed houses, burnt-out apartments and abandoned power plants, this sick activity can only be responded to with truly strong measures,” Zelenskiy wrote on X, calling on the US and Europe to put more pressure on Russia.
He said rescue teams were continuing to search for people trapped under rubble in one of the damaged homes.
Russia had no immediate comment on the attack.
Thousands of homes without heat in winter
Explosions echoed across Kiev before dawn on Saturday as Ukrainian air defense forces sprang into action. The Air Force said Russian drones were targeting the capital and areas in the northeast and south.
Officials said various parts of Kiev’s seven different districts were affected, and at least three high-rise apartment buildings were set on fire.
State power grid operator Ukrenergo said energy facilities across Ukraine, including in Kiev and surrounding areas, had come under Russian attack and emergency power outages had been implemented across the capital.
Ukraine’s foreign minister said airstrikes left a third of Kiev without heating as temperatures hovered around 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) Saturday morning.
The Kiev regional authorities, which surrounds but does not include the city, said 320,000 homes were without power after the attack.
The Polish Air Navigation Authority also posted on X that the airstrike caused the temporary closure of Rzeszow and Lublin airports in southeastern Poland, west of Ukraine, after the Polish military scrambled fighter jets.
According to Ukrainian authorities, Russia launched attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure on Thursday night and stepped up attacks on the southern region of Odessa, where Ukraine’s main port is located.
President Trump and Zelensky discuss possibilities for U.S. security
President Zelensky told reporters in Kiev on Friday that the draft 20-point document that will form the basis of the US push for a peace deal is 90% complete, but the territorial issue remains a major diplomatic hurdle.
He said that the security agreement between Ukraine and the United States is almost ready. This was an important element after the initial post-Soviet guarantees proved meaningless.
President Zelenskiy posted on social media that “many things may be decided before the new year.”
President Trump said the United States is the driving force behind this process.
“He doesn’t have anything until I approve it,” Trump told Politico. “So let’s see what he has.”
Ahead of the talks, Zelenskiy will hold a telephone conversation with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other European leaders on Saturday, a European Commission spokesperson said.
President Zelensky told Axios that the United States had offered a 15-year agreement on security guarantees subject to renewal, but Kiev wanted a longer-term agreement with legally binding provisions to prevent further Russian aggression.
President Trump said he believed Sunday’s meeting would go well. He also said he intended to meet with Putin “soon and as often as I wish.”
Disputed territories, nuclear power plants, and economic zones
An important point in addition to territory is control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, which was captured by Russia in the first weeks of the war.
The Russian government is demanding that the Russian military withdraw to Ukraine from the eastern region of Donetsk, which it was unable to capture, with the aim of securing the entire Donbas region (including the Luhansk region).
But Kiev wants fighting to stop on the current front.
Under the US compromise, a free economic zone would be established once Ukrainian troops withdraw from parts of the Donetsk region, but details have not yet been worked out.
Axios reported that President Zelenskiy said that if he is unable to get the United States to support Ukraine’s position on the land issue, he is willing to put the 20-point plan to a referendum as long as Russia agrees to a 60-day cease-fire that would allow Ukraine to prepare and hold a vote.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Kiev’s 20-point plan was different from what Russia had been discussing with the United States, according to Interfax.
But he expressed optimism that the situation had reached a “tipping point” towards reconciliation.
President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov met with members of the Trump administration after the Kremlin received a U.S. proposal about a potential peace deal, the Kremlin announced Friday. It has not been disclosed how the Russian government viewed the documents.
Contributed by: Reuters
