A Russian strike on Ukraine’s Kyiv region killed at least four people and wounded 15, a Ukrainian official said Saturday, after the United States postponed sponsored talks planned between Russia and Ukraine. Mykola Kalashnyk, head of the regional administration, said the attack hit four districts and damaged homes, schools, businesses and critical infrastructure, adding that three of the wounded were in critical condition.
Kalashnyk said the assault followed a broader pattern of strikes that have accompanied stalled diplomacy. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the main target of the strikes was the energy infrastructure in the Kyiv region, and he described the attack as involving around 430 drones and 68 missiles.
Zelenskyy said Russia was aiming to press the conflict while international attention is diverted, calling on Kyiv’s Western partners to focus “one hundred percent attention” on boosting production of air-defense missiles. In a separate social media post, he said “Russia will try to exploit the war in the Middle East to cause even greater destruction here in Europe, in Ukraine,” and he argued that Europe needs systems capable of countering ballistic threats.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the nighttime strikes targeted energy and industrial facilities that serve Ukraine’s armed forces, as well as military airfields. Moscow also said it shot down 87 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 16 over the Krasnodar region and 31 over the nearby Sea of Azov.
While Kyiv reported the casualties and damage in the capital region, the conflict’s wider effects were also reported in southern Russia. Russian officials in the Krasnodar region said Ukrainian drones hit an oil refinery and a port used to ship liquefied natural gas and grains, with three people reported hurt in a strike on Port Kavkaz.
Krasnodar authorities said a service vessel and pier infrastructure were damaged and that one person was hospitalized. They also said falling drone debris sparked a fire at the Afipsky oil refinery—one of the largest in southern Russia—adding that no one was hurt and that officials had not immediately commented on damage.
Ukraine’s General Staff said in a Facebook post that both the refinery and the port are used to supply Russia’s armed forces and that it was assessing the impact. Russia’s aviation authorities later reported temporary flight restrictions at three international airports in Moscow—Domodedovo, Vnukovo and Zhukovsky—as the city faced drone approach activity, according to Sergei Sobyanin.
In the background, Zelenskyy said Kyiv was awaiting White House approval for a major drone production agreement Ukraine proposed last year, and he criticized a 30-day U.S. waiver on Russian oil sanctions tied to the Middle East war. He said the easing could provide Russia about $10 billion for its war and argued that it would not help bring an end to the fighting.