KYIV: A Russian attack on Ukraine killed six people and wounded dozens, officials said, while emergency crews restored power to more than 400,000 households in Kyiv after strikes on the grid as the US attempts to broker peace talks. "While everyone is discussing points of peace plans, Russia continues to pursue its 'war plan' of two points: to kill and destroy", Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, wrote on Saturday morning as Kyiv residents surveyed the damage after a heavy night of explosions that mostly targeted the capital.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had launched around 36 missiles and nearly 600 drones in the attack. Ukraine's State Emergency Services said two people died in the overnight attack in Kyiv and 38 were injured. Regional officials and police said one person had died in the region surrounding the capital, two in southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region and one in a midday attack in Kherson region in the south.
The deafening roar of generators and the stench of diesel fumes now fill the capital's avenues and people use torches at night as streetlights are often out. Ukraine's largest private power producer, DTEK, said 420,000 customers had had their electricity restored in Kyiv, with smaller numbers still to be reconnected. Five other regions were also affected. Russia's Defence Ministry said Moscow had launched a "massive" overnight strike on Ukrainian military-industrial and energy facilities in response to what it called "terrorist attacks".
Ukraine has been negotiating with the United States on the terms of a peace agreement that Washington is seeking to broker between Kyiv and Moscow to end Russia's nearly four-year-old war. Zelensky said on Saturday that a delegation headed by Security Council Secretary Rustem Umerov was on its way to the United States to continue talks.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner will meet the Ukrainian officials in Florida, a senior US official said. Kyiv and its European allies say they want peace but pushed back against some of the original terms pushed by the US, with Ukraine unwilling to withdraw from land it currently holds and resisting any restriction on its future ability to join alliances.
Ukrainian naval drones hit two sanctioned tankers in the Black Sea as they headed to a Russian port to load up with oil destined for foreign markets, an official said on Saturday, as Kyiv tries to pile pressure on Russia's vast oil industry. The two oil tankers, identified as the Kairos and Virat, were empty and sailing to Novorossiysk, a major Russian Black Sea oil terminal, the official at the Security Service of Ukraine said.
Russia will notify all international platforms about the attack on the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal on the Black Sea, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday, as cited by state-run RIA news agency. The CPC, which includes Russian, Kazakh and US shareholders, said it had halted operations after a mooring at its Russian terminal on the Black Sea was significantly damaged by a Ukrainian naval drone attack. Commenting on the incident, Zakharova said Ukraine's actions now pose a threat to global security. — Reuters
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