KYIV: Russian drone and missile strikes on Ukraine have targeted critical infrastructure, including energy sites and railways, triggering heating and water outages for thousands of households, Kyiv said. The latest wave of aerial strikes, through Friday night into Saturday, came as Ukrainian negotiators were to meet in Florida with American envoys for a third straight day of talks on the US-drafted plan on how to end the almost four-year war. Russia launched 653 drones and 51 missiles at Ukraine, Kyiv's air force said on Saturday. "The main targets of these strikes, once again, were energy facilities," President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media. "Russia's aim is to inflict suffering on millions of Ukrainians," he said.
The drones and missiles had also targeted energy facilities in the Chernigiv, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions, Kyiv officials said. In the Odesa region, "9,500 subscribers remain without heat supply and 34,000 subscribers remain without water supply due to damage," Restoration Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said. A Russian drone strike also hit and "burned down the main railway station building in Fastiv," a city around 70 kilometres (45 miles) southwest of Kyiv, Zelensky said.
There were no casualties, but "suburban train traffic has been disrupted," Ukraine's state rail operator Ukrzaliznytsya added. An emergency coordination meeting of Ukrainian ministers was convened in the wake of the strikes, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said on X. Additional "rolling power outages will be required across the country" to stabilise the system while repairs continued, she added.
Neighbouring Moldova's national energy provider said it was also affected by the strikes. "Following attacks on Ukraine's energy system... an important energy group has been disconnected and the interconnection lines are close to their limit," Moldelectrica said on social media. It said it had "requested emergency assistance from Romania as a preventive measure for the next few hours," and urged citizens to "consume electricity rationally".
Despite the US-led push to end the conflict, Russia has routinely targeted Ukraine's power and heating grid, destroying a large part of the key civilian infrastructure. As with previous waves of attacks, the Russian defence ministry said its strikes had targeted "Ukrainian military-industrial complex enterprises and the energy facilities that support them," and added that "all designated targets were hit".
Meanwhile, Ukrainian and US officials will hold a third straight day of talks in Miami, with Washington saying the two sides agreed that "real progress" would depend on Russia's willingness to end the war. President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner have been meeting top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov and Andrii Hnatov, the chief of staff of Kyiv's armed forces.
The talks come after Witkoff and Kushner met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on Tuesday to discuss a US plan to end the conflict, but Moscow rejected parts of the proposal. "Both parties agreed that real progress toward any agreement depends on Russia's readiness to show serious commitment to long-term peace, including steps toward de-escalation and cessation of killings," said a readout of the Miami talks posted on X by Witkoff on Friday.
The US and Ukrainian officials "also agreed on the framework of security arrangements and discussed necessary deterrence capabilities to sustain a lasting peace." Washington's plan involves Ukraine surrendering land that Russia has not been able to win on the battlefield in return for security promises that fall short of Kyiv's aspirations to join Nato. But the nature of the security guarantees that Ukraine could get have so far been shrouded in uncertainty, beyond an initial plan saying that jets to defend Kyiv could be based in Poland. — AFP
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