Russia unleashes new attacks on freezing Ukraine, a day before peace talks

Russia fired around 450 long-range drones and 70 missiles at Ukraine in a major attack overnight targeting the country’s power grid in freezing temperatures, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday.

The barrage came a day before the two countries were due to attend a new round of U.S.-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi, 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 specifically took aim at the power grid, Zelenskyy said, as part of Moscow’s ongoing campaign to deny civilians light, heating and running water amid the coldest winter in years. 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 4 Fahrenheit during the night and stood at 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 war. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte was on an official visit to Kyiv on Tuesday to back Ukraine’s war effort.

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.

U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner will travel to Abu Dhabi for the next round of talks, two U.S. officials told NBC News. They are scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, Zelenskyy has indicated.

The U.S. mediated the first round of direct negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv since the start of the war last week.

“I think we’re doing very well with Ukraine and Russia,” Trump said Monday evening. “For the first time, I’m saying that. You know, we’re doing, I think we’re going to maybe have some good news.”

Russia has tried to wear down Ukrainians’ appetite for the fight by creating hardship for the civilian population.

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.

Russian drone strikes on DTEK killed 12 people and injured 16 others Sunday, officials said, in the first attack on Ukraine’s energy sector since Trump requested President Vladimir Putin refrain from targeting the energy system several days ago.

In Kyiv, officials said that five people were wounded in the Monday 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.

The second round of trilateral discussions come several days later than initially anticipated and follows a separate bilateral meeting between Witkoff, Kushner and Russian Special Envoy Kirill Dmitriev in Florida on Saturday.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and White House adviser Josh Gruenbaum also attended the talks.

Witkoff called the discussions “productive and constructive,” but provided few details on what was discussed.

“We are encouraged by this meeting that Russia is working toward securing peace in Ukraine and is grateful for @POTUS’s critical leadership in seeking a durable and lasting peace,” Witkoff wrote on X.