KYIV, Ukraine — Russia unleashed a colossal wave of attacks on Ukraine overnight into Tuesday, filling Ukraine’s skies with drones and missiles two days before Christmas while dismissing optimism from American officials that peace talks hosted in the United States were yielding progress.
The Kremlin fired 635 drones and 38 missiles, Ukrainian officials said, triggering air raid sirens, nationwide blackouts and prompting neighboring Poland to scramble fighter jets. At least four people were killed, including a child, with dozens more injured, regional officials said.
The bombardment came hours before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Russia may launch “massive strikes on Christmas,” saying his country was suffering a “shortage of air defense systems.”
Zelenskyy said Monday that talks between U.S., Ukrainian and European officials in Miami over the weekend had been “quite solid and dignified.” He conceded that “not everything is perfect so far,” but that a “plan is in place,” including the “security guarantees” that he and his European allies say is essential in any deal to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin from attacking again.
President Donald Trump told reporters Monday at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach that the discussions were “going OK” and that “we are talking.”
However, Russian officials, who over the weekend held their own talks with the U.S. team in the Sunshine State, continued to downplay any sense of progress and Moscow still shows little sign of yielding from the maximalist war demands that Ukraine surrender territory, reduce its army and never join NATO.
Asked if there had been a breakthrough, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday, “No, of course not. It’s a work in progress.”
In a separate interview with the Izvestia newspaper, Peskov said the main aim of the “meticulous” and “expert level” talks was to get a sense of what the other side had been discussing and to see whether that was acceptable to the Kremlin.
Representing Russia in Florida was Putin’s envoy and the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Kirill Dmitriev. The Kremlin expected him to “bring back some signals that the Americans received from the Europeans and the Ukrainians,” Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said Sunday. “We’ll discuss all of this here, and see what can be accepted and what absolutely cannot be.”
While the diplomats jetted back from the U.S., Russia was preparing its largest missile and drone attack launched at Ukraine since October.
Among the widespread areas targeted was the southern port city of Odesa, which came under fire Monday night for the second time in 24 hours, with damage to the docks and a civilian ship, regional officials there said.
“It’s getting harder psychologically,” said Olena Davydovska, 51, a consultant who along with other residents in the city has only just emerged from five whole days without power. “I’m such an optimist in life. But every day, this optimism somehow decreases and decreases. And finding some reasons to smile is becoming more and more difficult.”
“Sometimes, I feel powerless and that there is some kind of boundless darkness ahead,” she added.
According to the Ukrainian air force, some 621 of the drones and missiles were downed by anti-aircraft defenses, as well as its own planes. But dozens got through. It said it detected 39 strikes, as well as eight instances in which drone debris rained down.
The damage was widespread. In Kyiv, one person was killed and eight others injured, including two children; in the central Zhytomyr region, one child was killed and five more civilians were injured, including a child; in western Khmelnytskyy, one civilian died; and in the southern city of Kherson, one person died and nine others were injured, regional officials in those places said.
The attacks targeted not only residential areas, but also the energy infrastructure that powers and heats their homes.
“Due to a massive missile and drone attack on energy infrastructure, emergency power outages have been introduced in several regions of Ukraine,” national energy company UkrEnego said in a statement.
The attack was so widespread that it triggered Poland — a member of NATO and the European Union — to scramble an unspecified number of fighter jets, its armed forces said in a statement.
“These actions are of a preventive nature and are aimed at securing the airspace and its protection, especially in areas adjacent to the threatened zones,” the country’s army said.
Daryna Mayer reported from Kyiv and Alexander Smith from London.
