KYIV, Ukraine — Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital with missiles and drones early Saturday morning, killing one person and wounding 27, a day before talks between Ukraine and the U.S., 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.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepared to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday for further talks on ending the nearly 4-year-old war. Zelenskyy told reporters he was on a plane en route to Florida on Saturday afternoon, and would stop in Canada on the way to meet Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Zelenskyy said he and Trump plan to discuss issues including security guarantees and territorial issues in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
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. It said it targeted energy infrastructure facilities used by Ukraine’s forces and military-industrial 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 519 drones and 40 missiles, Ukraine’s air force said. The main target was energy and civilian infrastructure in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said. In some districts of the region there is no electricity or heating because of the attacks, he added.
“Today Russia demonstrated how it responds to peace talks between Ukraine and the United States on ending Russia’s war against Ukraine. They carried out massive attacks on Ukraine precisely as we move toward peace negotiations,” said Zelenskyy, speaking to reporters via audio note while traveling. “That is Russia’s response.”
Screams as a man burns to death
More than 10 residential buildings were damaged, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said 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 heads to Florida for talks with Trump
Zelenskyy told reporters he would aim to ensure there were “as few unresolved issues as possible” in talks with Trump while respecting Ukraine’s 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, speaking via audio note in a Whatsapp chat with journalists.
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.
Trump-Zelenskyy talks will address security guarantees and reconstruction, Ukraine leader says
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.
Zelenskyy also will speak to European leaders online to brief them on the discussions.
Associated Press writer Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia contributed to this report.