Russia carried out a missile strike on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko. The attack followed a warning from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his nightly video address that Russia was preparing new strikes on energy facilities, bridges and other infrastructure.
Debris from Saturday’s attack damaged a residential building, Klitschko said. He wrote on Telegram: ‘Explosions in the Kyiv suburbs. The enemy is hitting infrastructure with ballistic missiles.’
Debris hits apartment block and kindergarten building in Kyiv
Klitschko said debris struck a five-storey apartment building in a western district of the city. The outer wall of a second residential block was also harmed.
Also read: Russian strike on Zaporizhia aid centre kills 40, Ukraine says · Russian strikes cut power in Ukraine as Kherson truce nears end
The city’s military administration said on Telegram that two people were hurt and a building housing a kindergarten was damaged. Officials kept warning residents that further strikes were possible for hours afterwards.
Brussels talks and Abu Dhabi negotiations on Ukraine
The attacks came as Zelenskyy said his government is pressing Western partners for specific guarantees on how post-war security support would work. He made the remarks in an interview broadcast late on Thursday, after two days of talks among allies in Brussels.
Those discussions covered post-war reconstruction, funding for next year and security guarantees backed by Ukraine’s Western allies. Ukrainian lead negotiator Rustem Umerov said in an online post that officials from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the European Union attended, along with representatives of the World Bank and the US investment group BlackRock.
The strikes occurred three days before US-led talks between Ukraine and Russia are due to open in Abu Dhabi, aimed at resolving a war that has lasted more than four years. The previous round of such talks took place in February.
Trump, Dmitriev and the Oleshky truce
On Thursday, US President Donald Trump said a deal between Russia and Ukraine could be imminent, after meeting Putin’s special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, at the White House. Trump said he had not met the Ukrainian delegation that day.
The same day, First Lady Melania Trump hosted a diplomatic gathering with Russian and Ukrainian representatives. It aimed to mark and build on a localised truce she had helped broker in the southern city of Oleshky in October. That truce expired last Sunday, a day before a Russian bombing of an aid distribution point in Komyshuvakha, in the Zaporizhia region.
Ukraine’s Emergency Service said on Friday that the death toll from the attack had risen to 50. It said the toll made the strike one of the deadliest attacks on civilians this year.
