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. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media that Russia used 36 missiles to target critical infrastructure. Only four missiles were taken down, Zelenskyy said, highlighting a shortage of interceptors.
He also said 172 drones were used in the attacks, which struck Kyiv and 12 other regions. The president accused Russia of intensifying its attacks on Ukraine and the country's infrastructure ahead of trilateral talks. Negotiators from Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. 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. "Russia has a very particular view of diplomacy – as a subtype of aggression," Zelenskyy wrote.
"We hope that the United States, like our other partners, will act on principle," he added. 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. Zelenskyy said a kindergarten was "partially destroyed." Photos show rubble near the damaged building.
Kateryna Korniichuk, 64, was at home with her granddaughter when an attack hit. "The first blast wave threw us against that wall and then against the other wall, because we were in the corridor. No sleep, no peace — nothing.
The children aren't sleeping, and neither are we," she told The . "I'm old, I can handle it, but what have the children done wrong?" Strikes also prompted officials to close Kyiv's 892-yard-long Northern Bridge, a major route connecting the city with large residential areas on the east bank of the Dnipro River. Russia's Ministry of Defense confirmed Saturday that it had targeted the bridge, saying that it facilitated the transport of weaponry, military hardware and specialist equipment for Ukraine's armed forces.
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