KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russia fired around 450 long-range drones and 70 missiles of various types at Ukraine in a major attack overnight, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday.
The barrage came as NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte visited Kyiv in a show of support and a day before Russia and Ukraine were due to attend U.S.-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, on ending the all-out war, which Russia launched nearly four years ago.
The bombardment of at least five regions of Ukraine included a record number of 32 ballistic missiles and specifically took aim at the power grid, Zelenskyy said, as part of Moscow´s ongoing campaign to deny civilians light, heating and running water during the coldest winter in years.
Private power company DTEK said it was the heaviest barrage of the electricity network this year. At least 10 people were wounded, officials said.
“Taking advantage of the coldest days of winter to terrorize people is more important to Russia than diplomacy,” Zelenskyy said. Temperatures in Kyiv fell to minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit) during the night and stood at minus 16 C (minus 3 F) on Tuesday.
He urged allies to send more air defense supplies and bring “maximum pressure” to bear on Russia to end its full-scale invasion, which began on Feb. 24, 2022.
Officials have described recent talks between Moscow and Kyiv delegations as constructive. But after a year of efforts, the Trump administration is still searching for a breakthrough on key issues such as who keeps the Ukrainian land that Russia´s army has occupied, and a comprehensive settlement appears distant. The Abu Dhabi talks were scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.
Rutte addressed the Ukrainian parliament during his visit and said that countries in the military alliance “are ready to provide support quickly and consistently” as peace efforts drag on.
Since last summer, NATO members have provided 75% of all missiles supplied to the front, and 90% of those used for Ukraine’s air defense, he said.
European countries, fearing Moscow’s ambitions, see their own future security as being on the line in Ukraine.
“Be assured that NATO stands with Ukraine and is ready to do so for years to come,” Rutte said. “Your security is our security. Your peace is our peace. And it must be lasting.”
A Kremlin official said last week that Russia had agreed to halt strikes on Kyiv for a week until Feb. 1 because of the frigid temperatures, following a personal request from U.S. President Donald Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, the bitter cold is continuing and so are Russia´s aerial attacks.
Russia has tried to wear down Ukrainians´ appetite for the fight by creating hardship for the civilian population living in dark, freezing homes.
It has tried to wreck Ukraine´s electricity network, targeting substations, transformers, turbines and generators at power plants. Ukraine´s largest private power company, DTEK, said that the overnight attack hit its thermal power plants in the ninth major assault since October.
In Kyiv, officials said that five people were wounded in the strikes that damaged and set fire to residential buildings, a kindergarten and a gas station in various parts of the capital, according to the State Emergency Service.
By early morning, 1,170 apartment buildings in the capital were without heating, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. That set back desperate repair operations that had restored power to all but 80 apartment buildings, he said.
Russia also struck Ukraine´s northeastern Kharkiv region, where injuries were reported, and the southern Odesa region.
The attack also damaged the Hall of Fame at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, at the foot of the Motherland Monument in Kyiv, Ukrainian Culture Minister Tetiana Berezhna said.
“It is symbolic and cynical at the same time: the aggressor state strikes a place of memory about the fight against aggression in the 20th century, repeating crimes in the 21st,” Berezhna said.
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