Russia fires 36 ballistic missiles at Kyiv and its region
Zelenskyy says the strike wounded nine people and hit substations linking two nuclear plants to the capital, where emergency outages are in place.
Russia launched 36 ballistic missiles and 172 drones at Ukraine overnight Friday into Saturday, and every missile was aimed at Kyiv and the surrounding region, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on his Telegram channel. The energy sector was the main target again.
Nine people were wounded, one of them a child. Apartment buildings and Kyiv's Northern Bridge were damaged, and a kindergarten was partly destroyed.
The worst of it was the damage to substations in the Kyiv region that tie the Rivne and Khmelnytskyi nuclear plants to the capital and central Ukraine. Substations were also hit in Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Rivne, Kharkiv and Dnipro, and twelve other regions came under attack besides Kyiv.
Power, water and heating are in a difficult state in the capital, Zelenskyy said. The utility DTEK imposed emergency outages across the region on the instruction of Ukrenergo, the national grid operator. The usual outage schedules are not in effect, and part of the Brovary district is without power.
Zelenskyy tied the strike to diplomacy: ahead of the trilateral talks, he said, Russia is "preparing" by firing ballistic missiles at Ukrainian critical infrastructure. He asked Washington for more bilateral support, more attention from Congress and more sanctions pressure on Vladimir Putin.
"When Russia tries to push Kyiv, a city of several million, and the whole country into a blackout, Ukraine cannot be left alone."
Strikes on Ukraine's power grid have recurred since the fall of 2022. On Nov. 3, another wave had already forced emergency outages in several regions and left Kyiv without running water.
This week, Donald Trump received Putin's envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, at the White House and spoke of a big deal. Russia, Ukraine and the United States are scheduled to hold talks in Abu Dhabi next week.
