A Russian drone attack killed three people in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region overnight, authorities said on Thursday (January 29, 2026), as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Moscow is planning another large-scale barrage despite plans for further U.S.-brokered peace talks at the weekend.

The Zaporizhzhia strike caused a major blaze in an apartment building, according to emergency services.

Firefighters also worked through the night to put out fires in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, where two people were injured, officials said.

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Mr. Zelenskyy said Ukrainian intelligence reports indicate Russia is assembling forces for a major aerial attack. Previous large attacks, sometimes involving more than 800 drones as well as cruise and ballistic missiles, have targeted the Ukrainian power grid.

The ongoing attacks discredit the peace talks, Mr. Zelenskyy said. “Every single Russian strike does,” he said late on Wednesday (January 28, 2026).

Russia’s daily bombardment of civilian areas behind the roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line has continued despite international condemnation and attempts to end the fighting almost four years after Russia launched its devastating all-out invasion of Ukraine.

Negotiations between the two sides are poised to resume on Sunday (February 1, 2026) amid doubts about Moscow’s commitment to a settlement.

The European Union’s top diplomat accused Russia of not taking the talks seriously, calling Thursday (January 29) in Brussels for more pressure to be exerted on Moscow to press it into making concessions.

“We see them increasing their attacks on Ukraine because they can’t make moves on the battlefield. So, they are attacking civilians,” Kaja Kallas said of Russia at a meeting of EU Foreign Ministers.

She stressed that Europe, which sees its own future security at stake in Ukraine, must be fully involved in talks to end the war. The push for a settlement has been led over the past year by the Trump administration, and European leaders fear their concerns may not be taken into account.

The number of soldiers killed, injured or missing on both sides during the war could reach 2 million by spring, with Russia sustaining the largest number of troop deaths for any major power in any conflict since World War II, according to an international think tank report published on Tuesday (January 27, 2026).

Russia launched over 6,000 drones at Ukraine over the past month alone, according to Ukraine’s Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. Russia is constantly improving its drones and its tactics, he said late Wednesday (January 28, 2026), prompting Ukraine to shift its air defense strategy, though he gave no details of the changes.

Russia fired more than 650 drones and three dozen missiles at Ukraine in a large-scale attack that began during the night and stretched into daylight hours Tuesday (December 23, 2025), officials said. At least three people were killed, including a 4-year-old child.

The barrage struck homes and the power grid in 13 regions of Ukraine, causing widespread outages in bitter temperatures, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, a day after he described recent progress on finding a peace deal “quite solid.”

The bombardment demonstrated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intention of prosecuting the invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Zelenskyy said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. Ukrainian and European officials have complained that Mr. Putin is not sincerely engaging with U.S.-led peace efforts.

The attack “is an extremely clear signal of Russian priorities,” Mr. Zelenskyy said. “A strike before Christmas, when people want to be with their families, at home, in safety. A strike, in fact, in the midst of negotiations that are being conducted to end this war. Putin cannot accept the fact that we must stop killing.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has for months been pressing for a peace agreement, but the negotiations have become entangled in the very different demands from Moscow and Kyiv.

U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said Sunday (December 21, 2025) he held “productive and constructive” talks in Florida with Ukrainian and European representatives. Mr. Trump was less effusive on Monday (December 22, 2025), saying, “The talks are going along.”

Initial reports from Ukrainian emergency services said the toddler died in Ukraine’s northwestern Zhytomyr region, while a drone killed a woman in the Kyiv region, and another civilian death was recorded in the western Khmelnytskyi region, according to Mr. Zelenskyy.

Authorities in the western regions of Rivne, Ternopil and Lviv, as well as the northern Sumy region, reported damage to energy infrastructure or power outages after the attack.

In the southern Odesa region, Russia struck energy, port, transport, industrial and residential infrastructure, according to regional head Oleh Kiper.

A merchant ship and over 120 homes were damaged, he said.