Russia launched its biggest overnight aerial attack on Ukraine so far this year, local authorities said on Saturday, hours after negotiators from Kyiv, Moscow and Washington met fortheir first known trilateral meetingsince the war began and agreed to continue talks.
A second day of trilateral talks was underway on Saturday, Russian state media agency TASS reported Saturday citing a source. As on Friday, these talks will be held behind closed doors in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, TASS said.
Between the two rounds of negotiations, missile and drone attacks targeted the Ukrainian capital, according to the country's air force, which activated air defenses. CNN journalists in Kyiv reported hearing explosions.
At least one person died and four people were wounded by the strikes, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko. He added that falling debris had caused fires and damaged buildings, with nearly 6,000 apartment blocks losing heat and other parts of the city cut off from water supply. As of Saturday morning local time it was -12 degrees Celsius (10 degrees Fahrenheit) in Kyiv.
Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv in the northeast, also came under attack – with strikes damaging a maternity hospital and a dormitory for displaced people, according to city mayor Ihor Terekhov. At least 19 people were wounded, including one child.
In total, Russia launched more than 370 drones and 21 missiles overnight, with other targets including Sumy and Chernihiv, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday. He added that the attacks had focused on Ukraine's energy sector, which is "critical" during the cold winter.
The attacks came shortly after delegations from both countries finished their first day of talks with US representatives.
According to TASS, territory remains the key sticking point in the negotiations. Going into the talks, it was widely understood that territory was the only remaining key issue to be resolved. The Kremlin has reiterated Russia's stance that Ukraine must withdraw from the Donbas region in the eastern part of the country, which Ukraine has repeatedly rejected.
The Donbas region is formed of the two coal-rich regions of Donetsk and Luhansk that used to make up Ukraine's industrial heartland. The region has a significant Russian-speaking population living there. And it was in the Donbas that Putin's mission to destabilize and conquer Ukraine started in 2014.
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The area also contains the"fortress belt"of industrial cities, railways and roads that form the backbone of Ukraine's defense and supply the frontline. Kyiv has spent years fortifying this area and losing it would leave the rest of eastern Ukraine wide open.
Russia has sent a military team to attend the talks in Abu Dhabi, including a top spy and military intelligence chief; Ukraine sent top negotiators including diplomats and security officials; and the US was represented by President Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and White House adviser Josh Gruenbaum.
The Trump administration has pressured Ukraine to accept a peace deal, despite widespread concerns such an arrangement couldfavor Moscow.
Nearly four years since launching a full-scale invasion of its neighbor, Russia occupies around 20% of the territory recognized under international law as part of sovereign Ukraine. That includes almost all of the Luhansk region, and parts of the Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
After the day's talks wrapped on Friday, Ukraine's top negotiator Rustem Umerov wrote on X that the meeting had focused on reaching a "dignified and lasting peace," and thanked the US for mediating.
"Additional meetings are scheduled for tomorrow," he said.
Zelensky struck a cautious note, saying it was "too early" to draw conclusions from Friday's talks. "We will see how the talks go tomorrow and what the results will be," he said afterward in a daily address.
He said the "main thing" in the talks is for Russia to finally be ready to end the war, adding: "Ukraine's position is clear. I have defined the framework for dialogue for our delegation."
CNN's Nick Paton Walsh, Nina Subkhanberdina, Victoria Butenko, Darya Tarasova, Helen Regan, Ivana Kottasová and Sophie Tanno contributed to this report.
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