KYIV: Large-scale Russian strikes killed at least three people and cut power to thousands in freezing winter temperatures across Ukraine on Tuesday, officials said, as US-led talks to end the nearly four-year war faltered. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the pre-Christmas strikes showed that the Kremlin had no intention of ending the attack it launched in February 2022. Russia attacked with 635 drones and 38 missiles, Ukraine’s air force said.
The strikes came a day after a Russian general was killed in a car blast in Moscow and after both sides held separate talks in Miami with US officials on ending the war in Miami. There has been no sign of an imminent breakthrough in the diplomatic push. Zelensky said a four-year-old child was killed in the central Zhytomyr region, where a Russian drone struck a residential building.
Workers were scrambling to repair energy infrastructure hit in the attack, he said, which forced emergency power cuts across several regions in frigid winter weather. “An attack ahead of Christmas, when people simply want to be with their families, at home, and safe. An attack carried out essentially in the midst of negotiations aimed at ending this war,” he said, adding: “Putin still cannot accept that he must stop killing.”
Russia’s army said it had launched a massive strike using long-range drones and hypersonic missiles at military and energy sites. The head of Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region, Vitaliy Bunechko, said a girl born in 2021 succumbed to her wounds after her building was hit. “Doctors fought to save her life, but in the end they were unable to do so,” he said on Telegram. There were also deaths in the Kyiv and Khmelnytskyi regions.
The southern Black Sea region of Odesa was also targeted again — as Russia steps up its attacks on the important port city. Olena Dolhachova, a 40-year-old maths teacher there, said she had to resort to candles to do her work. “There are attacks every week. Just when power is restored, all our schedules are disrupted again, we are left without electricity, without stability, sitting in the dark for two or three days,” she said. “It is very difficult.” Ukrainian authorities say the intensifying strikes are an attempt to completely destroy Ukraine’s maritime logistics. Dolhachova said power outages often mean her students cannot study in online classes. “Despite everything, we are working, we are teaching… We are not giving up,” she added.
Anastasiia Kulakivska, an Odesa beauty salon manager, said “seven days without electricity has become the norm in Odesa.” “The house gets very cold very quickly,” she said, describing trying to keep her medicine at the right temperature without a fridge and using a generator for her family’s needs. “It’s about health,” she said. “For example, when your child is sick, you need to plug in an inhaler, and it can’t run on batteries.”
Ukraine’s prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko said energy facilities in the west of the country were most affected by the strikes.
Meanwhile, Zelensky said on Tuesday several draft documents, including on security guarantees, had been prepared after talks between US and Ukrainian officials on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine. US officials held talks in Miami at the weekend with Ukrainian and European delegations, and had separate talks in Florida with Russian representatives as Washington tests the scope for a settlement after nearly four years of war.
Kyiv, under US pressure to quickly secure peace, has sought to balance out an initial proposal widely seen as favourable to Moscow demanding it cede more territory and restrict its military capabilities. “They worked productively with envoys of President (Donald) Trump and several draft documents have now been prepared,” Zelensky wrote on X after being briefed by Ukrainian negotiators Rustem Umerov and Andrii Hnatov. “In particular, these include documents on security guarantees for Ukraine, on recovery, and on a basic framework for ending this war.”
Ukrainian officials have sought strong security guarantees from allies to prevent another Russian attack after any peace deal. “The points for today have been set in such a way as to correspond to the objective of actually ending the war and the need to prevent a third Russian attack,” Zelensky added. — Agencies
