Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital with ballistic missiles and drones on Saturday (December 27, 2025), killing at least one person and wounding 27, a day before talks between the leaders of Ukraine and the United States, authorities said.
Explosions boomed across Kyiv as the attack began in early morning and continued for hours.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepared to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday for further talks on ending the nearly four-year war. Mr. Zelenskyy told reporters that he and Trump plan to discuss several matters, including security guarantees and territorial issues in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
“This attack is Russia’s answer on our peace efforts. It really shows that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin does not want peace,” Mr. Zelenskyy said after stopping in Canada to meet with Prime Minister Mark Carney in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Carney announced $1.8 billion worth of economic assistance to Ukraine that helps unlock financing from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for reconstruction and development.
“The barbarism that we saw overnight, the attack of Kyiv, shows just how important that we stand with Ukraine during this difficult time,” Mr. Carney said.
Apartment buildings hit
The Russian Defence Ministry said it carried out a “massive strike” overnight, using “long-range precision-guided weapons from land, air and sea, including Kinzhal hypersonic aeroballistic missiles” and drones. It said it targeted energy infrastructure facilities used by Ukraine’s forces and military-industrial enterprises.
But several residential buildings were struck.
The Ministry said the strike was in response to Ukraine’s attacks on “civilian objects” in Russia.
Earlier on Saturday, the ministry said air defences shot down seven Ukrainian drones over the Russian regions of Krasnodar and Adygeya overnight. On Saturday afternoon, the ministry said 147 more drones were shot down over a number of Russian regions.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said air defences intercepted more than 20 drones “flying towards” the Russian capital on Saturday. He did not report any damage or casualties. It was not immediately clear whether those were included in the Defence Ministry’s count.
Russia claims territorial gains
In what could be viewed as an effort to further ramp up pressure on Ukraine before the Zelenskyy-Trump talks, the Kremlin on Saturday night released a video of Mr. Putin in military fatigues receiving reports from top military officials in an unidentified military command post.
Russia’s General Staff chief, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, reported to Putin that the Russian troops have taken full control of Myrnohrad in the Donetsk region —Russia uses the old Soviet name of the city, Dimitrov — the city of Huliaipole in the Zaporizhzhia region, and a few other settlements.
There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian officials. Ukraine’s General Staff reported attempts by Russian forces “to push Ukrainian defenders from their positions” in a number of areas, including Myrnohrad, and Kyiv’s forces repelling “enemy attempts to advance” in the areas of Huliaipole and Bilohiria.
Mr. Putin said that “if Kyiv authorities are not willing to end the matter peacefully, we will achieve all the goals we have in the special military operation by military means”.
Poland on alert
Poland scrambled fighter jets and closed airports in Lublin and Rzeszow near the border with Ukraine for several hours during the Russian attacks, the country’s armed forces command said on social media. There was no violation of Polish airspace, it said.
Civil aviation authority Pansa later said the airports had resumed operations. It was unclear what caused the alert in Poland when the Russian attacks were focussed on Kyiv, which is far from the border.
Russia targeted Ukraine with 519 drones and 40 missiles, Ukraine’s air force said. The main target was energy and civilian infrastructure in Kyiv, Mr. Zelenskyy said. In some districts of the region, there is no electricity or heating because of the attacks, he said.
Screams as man burns to death
More than 10 residential buildings were damaged, Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on social media.
Olena Karpenko, 52, said she heard a man as he burned to death. “His scream is still in my ears. I cannot believe it,” she said, weeping.
Karpenko said they heard an explosion at the nearby thermal power plant, followed by a stronger blast that shook the windows of her home. Then came the strike on her building.
Two children were among those wounded in the attack, which hit seven locations across the capital, the head of the Kyiv Military Administration, Tymur Tkachenko, said on social media.
A body was found under the rubble of one damaged building, he said. It was not immediately clear if that person was the man who burned to death.
A fire broke out in an 18-story residential building in the Dnipro district, and emergency crews rushed to contain the flames. A 24-story residential building in the Darnytsia district was also hit, Tkachenko said, and more fires broke out in the Obolonskyi and Holosiivsky districts.
In the wider Kyiv region, the strikes hit industrial and residential buildings, according to Ukraine’s Emergency Service. In the Vyshhorod area, emergency crews rescued one person found under the rubble of a destroyed house.
Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said on X on Saturday evening that the Russian attack caused “extensive power outages” in Kyiv, saying that hundreds of thousands of customers remained without power.
Security guarantees prioritised
Mr. Zelenskyy told reporters he would aim to ensure there were “as few unresolved issues as possible” in talks with Trump, while respecting Ukraine’s red lines.
Speaking by audio note in a WhatsApp chat with journalists, Mr. Zelenskyy said he would prioritise discussing security guarantees for Ukraine. He has said that in the draft peace plan, the US has committed to providing guarantees that mirror the NATO alliance’s Article 5, which means an attack on Ukraine would trigger a collective military response from the US and its allies.
But key details must be worked out in a bilateral agreement.
Territorial concessions are the most sensitive of issues the two leaders will discuss, including the Donetsk region and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Mr. Zelenskyy reiterated that Ukraine would never recognise any territory as Russian “under any circumstances”.
Published – December 28, 2025 05:12 am IST
