Drone and missile attacks struck across Ukraine on Saturday, wounding at least nine people, as Kyiv and Moscow prepared for new talks next week with the United States. Negotiators from Russia, Ukraine and the US are to meet on Tuesday in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, for talks aimed at ending the war.
The new round of negotiations would be the fourth brokered by the Trump administration, the most recent having been in Geneva in February. Western governments backing the peace initiative are seeking a new formula to break the impasse while acknowledging that territorial and security questions remain unresolved.
The Russian missiles that hit overnight across the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, damaged homes and commercial properties, triggering new power and water outages, national and city authorities said. The strikes also closed traffic on a bridge over the Dnipro River and damaged energy facilities in the capital and the surrounding region.
Zelenskyy accuses Russia of striking before talks
In a statement on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia was preparing for trilateral talks by launching ballistic missiles at Ukraine's critical infrastructure. He said Russia fired 36 ballistic missiles at Kyiv and the surrounding region overnight, of which only four were shot down due to a lack of Patriot interceptors.
The barrage involved 172 drones over Kyiv and 12 other regions, wounding nine people, including a child, he said. The attacks killed at least two people across Ukraine and wounded about a dozen others, authorities said. Zelenskyy said the missiles included KN-23 missiles manufactured and supplied by North Korea, and he urged Washington to increase its flagging aid to Kyiv.
By intensifying its attacks on Ukraine and its infrastructure at this very moment, Russia is trying to additionally lay the groundwork for putting pressure on Ukraine's position and that of its partners, Zelenskyy said in a post on social media.
Strikes traded in both directions
Russia's Ministry of Defence said on Saturday that its forces shot down 411 Ukrainian drones overnight over ten Russian regions, including Belgorod. A Ukrainian attack killed one person in Russia's Belgorod region when a drone hit a private home in the town of Grayvoron, local officials said on Saturday.
The Russian delegation for the talks with the US and Ukraine will include senior military officials and diplomats. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the delegation would again be led by Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky and include deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov, who will join the negotiations for the first time, along with senior General Staff officer Yuri Zhigarlovsky.
Ukraine's negotiating team will be led by Rustem Umerov, with Presidential Office chief Kyrylo Budanov also taking part. The United States is expected to be represented by Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
A deal may be near, Trump says
On Thursday, US President Donald Trump said a deal between Russia and Ukraine may be imminent, after a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin's special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, at the White House. The meeting is scheduled to take place in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday and Wednesday and will be the first trilateral engagement of its kind since February.
The war, which began with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has now run for more than four years. The last such talks took place in February this year, and no comprehensive peace agreement has been reached since.
For Kyiv, the timing of the strikes carries its own message. The attacks came as temperatures drop in Ukraine, days before US-brokered talks are set to open in Abu Dhabi to revive stalled diplomatic efforts, and they hit the energy infrastructure that keeps homes warm through the winter.
