By Lucy Davalou &AP
Release date
At least three people were killed and dozens injured across Ukraine, in what Ukrainian authorities described as one of the deadliest incidents since the start of the war.
According to the Ukrainian military, the Russian night attack was a combined attack involving 596 drones and 36 different types of missiles.
Local police said Saturday that two of the victims were killed in the nighttime attack on the capital, which was the main target, and that one woman was killed and eight others injured in the attack in the Kiev region.
The attack included five Kh-47M2 Kinzhal air ballistic missiles, 23 Kh-101/Iskander-K cruise missiles, four Iskander-M ballistic missiles, and four Kh-59/69 guided air-launched missiles.
Ukraine said its armed forces shot down 558 drones and 19 missiles. However, 22 locations were damaged and 17 were damaged by falling debris.
The attack, which primarily targeted Kiev, left around 500,000 people and at least 100,000 people living in the Kyiv region without power as temperatures were expected to reach between 4 and 8 degrees Celsius on Saturday morning. However, private energy supplier DTEK said power had been restored to about 360,000 of its customers.
Kiev and its Western allies claim Russia has cut off heating, light and water supplies from civilians for the fourth consecutive winter and is deliberately targeting Ukraine’s energy sector to wage psychological warfare against the population.
Ukraine attacks Russian oil terminal
Meanwhile, owner Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) said Ukraine attacked a major oil terminal on Saturday, damaging one of its three mooring points and forcing it to suspend operations. Ukraine’s head of counter-disinformation, Andriy Kovalenko, also confirmed the attack.
“Ukrainian special forces worked on the Russian Federation, its energy sector and infrastructure. In particular, naval drones succeeded in destroying one of the three oil tanker berths of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium in the Novorossiysk region,” Kovalenko wrote on Telegram.
Months of long-range drone strikes by Ukraine against Russian refineries and terminals are aimed at depriving Russia of oil export revenues needed to fund its war effort.
Ukrainian representative visits US to work on peace plan
The latest attack on Kiev comes as the Ukrainian peace negotiators, led by Rustem Umierov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, are scheduled to meet with American negotiators in the United States this weekend. According to a Facebook post by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the report is expected to be released this Sunday.
Meanwhile, while discussing the peace plan in an interview, Mykhailo Podlyak, advisor to the Ukrainian President’s Office, told RTP that Ukraine is ready to engage in the peace process, but Russia must also show clear signs that it wants to end the war. Podolyak stressed that Ukraine is ready to sign a revised 19-point document based on the proposal originally proposed by US President Donald Trump.
The U.S. delegation will then travel to Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin later next week.
