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 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. Zelensky said they planned to discuss issues such as security guarantees and territorial issues in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
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 caused the alarm 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.
“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 settlements in kyiv, the head of the city’s military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, said in a statement on Telegram. A body was found under the rubble of a damaged building, Klymenko said.
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.
