Russian strikes kill 1, wound dozens in Ukraine ahead of Trump-Zelenskyy meeting
Russia attacked Ukraine's capital with missiles and drones early Saturday morning, killing one person and wounding 27 others, a day before talks between Ukraine and the U.S., local authorities said.
Explosions boomed across Kyiv for hours as ballistic missiles and drones hit the city. The attack began in the early morning hours Saturday and was continuing as day broke.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday that it carried out a "massive strike" overnight, using "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 defenses shot down seven Ukrainian drones over the Russian regions of Krasnodar and Adygeya overnight.
Poland scrambled fighter jets and closed airports in Lublin and Rzeszow near the border with Ukraine for several hours during the Russian attacks, the country's armed forces command said on 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.
Russia targeted Ukraine with almost 500 drones and 40 missiles of various types, Zelenskyy said in a post on Telegram. The main target was energy and civilian infrastructure in Kyiv, he said. In some districts of the region there is no electricity or heating because of the attacks, he added.
The attack came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepares to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday for further talks in an effort to end the nearly 4-year-old war.
"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."
"His scream is still in my ears"
There were over 10 damaged residential buildings in the attack, said Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, in a post on Telegram. People were being evacuated from under the rubble of collapsed buildings.
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 hit seven locations across the capital, the head of the Kyiv Military Administration, Tymur Tkachenko, in a statement on Telegram. A body was found under the rubble of one damaged building, he said.
"In fact, the entire center of Kyiv was under attack by drones," he said, adding that Russia was sending a message that "it is raising the stakes in this war."
A fire broke out in an 18-story residential building in the Dnipro district of the city, and emergency crews rushed to the scene to contain the flames. A 24-story 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.
Zelenskyy travels to meet Trump
Zelenskyy told journalists on a messenger app that he will meet with Canadian prime minister Mark Carney and "speak online with European leaders" during a stopover in Canada on his way to the U.S., according to the AFP.
Zelenskyy also said that he would aim to ensure there were "as few unresolved issues as possible" during his talks with Trump while respecting Ukraine's own 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," he said.
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 of 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 (nuclear plant), security guarantees are critically important for us," he said.