Russian forces hammered energy infrastructure around Ukraine's capital with missiles and drones overnight, straining Kyiv's power supply and heating systems as temperatures headed towards zero, officials said on Saturday.
Three days before Russia and Ukraine are due to take part in U.S.-brokered talks, explosions rocked Kyiv as Moscow unleashed waves of ballistic missiles, several of which hit and damaged the Northern Bridge across the Dnipro River, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Strikes on energy facilities outside Kyiv — including systems sending power from two nuclear plants to the city and Ukraine's central regions — caused serious damage, the energy ministry said.
"The capital is facing serious difficulties with its electricity, water, and heat supplies," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X, adding that substations in five other regions were also hit.
He said only four of the 36 ballistic-type missiles launched by Russia had been intercepted, and that some were North Korean-made and hit an important energy facility.
At least two people were killed and around a dozen others wounded across Ukraine in the overnight attacks, which also damaged homes, businesses and non-residential buildings, authorities said.
Moscow's defence ministry said it struck what it described as targets in Ukraine's military-industrial sector, as well as energy and transport infrastructure in and around Kyiv.
Ukraine also carried out drone and missile attacks on several Russian regions, causing minor damage but no casualties, Russian authorities said on Saturday.
Russia has stepped up air attacks on Ukraine as its ground offensive has largely stalled, pounding energy infrastructure in Ukrainian cities with difficult-to-intercept missiles and drones more than 4-1/2 years since its full-scale invasion.
Moscow has expanded its campaign in recent weeks to target Kyiv's bridges, snarling traffic in the city of more than 3 million people.
In one Kyiv neighborhood on Saturday, residents sorted through debris and dug out a car that had been buried under dirt by a missile blast.
"It's good that we're left alive," said Anna Raduka, 33, standing near a large crater across from her apartment building.
"Everything else we'll get later. Property isn't what matters — it's life that does."
Ukrainian and Russian officials are due to take part in three-way talks in Abu Dhabi from Tuesday to Wednesday as part of a U.S.-backed peace push that has yielded few results so far.
Russia's delegation for the first trilateral talks since February will include senior military officials and diplomats, including Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russia's Interfax news agency.
Russia's delegation, headed by Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky, will also include Yuri Zhigarlovsky, a senior General Staff officer, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin and military intelligence chief Igor Kostyukov, the report said.
The attacks also follow U.S. midterm elections that have raised hopes in Ukraine for stronger support against Russia's war from a Democratic-controlled Congress.
"We are counting on the U.S. Congress to give more attention to Ukraine, because Russia keeps increasing the number of its attacks," Zelenskyy added.
