Russian attacks kill three and cut power to freezing Ukrainian regions

A massive Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine has killed three people and cut power to several Ukrainian regions two days before Christmas and as the country enters a cold snap.Russia sent more than 650 drones and more than 30 missiles into Ukraine in the attack, which began overnight and continued into Tuesday morning, local officials said. At least three people were killed, including a four-year-old child.Poland scrambled fighter jets to protect its airspace during the strike, the country’s army said in a statement.Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on Telegram: “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.”The strikes follow weekend negotiations in Miami involving Donald Trump’s peace envoy, Steve Witkoff, and representatives from Russia and Ukraine, who each held separate meetings with Witkoff and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Witkoff called the discussions “constructive” but there was no sign the talks were any closer to bringing lasting peace.Ukraine has engaged its European allies to help hammer out a compromise agreement with the US, although Zelenskyy has said the issue of territorial concessions remains a sticking point. But there is no sign that Russia is even close to signing on to the package of agreements Kyiv and Washington have arrived at, despite repeated positive messaging from the White House that peace is close.“Slow progress is being observed,” the Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, told state media after the talks. However, Vladimir Putin has said multiple times that Russia will only agree to a deal that addresses what he sees as the “root causes” of the conflict.Russia has continued to hit Ukrainian energy infrastructure as the talks go on, apparently in the hope of making conditions harder for the population and breaking Ukrainian resolve. Tuesday’s attack, which the energy operator Ukrenergo said was the ninth mass attack on energy infrastructure of the season, left three western regions “almost completely without power”, it said.Kyiv and many other cities have been experiencing scheduled power cuts for weeks as the grid struggles to cope with reduced capacity during the winter months. Temperatures have dropped below freezing in many parts of Ukraine, with a high of -5C forecast for Kyiv on Wednesday.Reports suggested a toddler was killed in the northwestern Zhytomyr region on Tuesday, while a drone killed a woman close to Kyiv. Authorities in several western regions reported damage to energy infrastructure.Russia struck a series of infrastructure targets in the southern city of Odesa and damaging more than 100 houses, according to local officials. Russia has been attacking the key port city relentlessly over recent weeks, leading to sustained power shortages.