KYIV, Ukraine — Russia unleashed a colossal wave of attacks on Ukraine overnight into Tuesday, filling Ukraine’s skies with drones and missiles two days before Christmas while dismissing optimism from American officials that peace talks hosted in the United States were yielding progress.
The Kremlin fired 635 drones and 38 missiles, Ukrainian officials said, triggering air raid sirens, nationwide blackouts and prompting neighboring Poland to scramble fighter jets. At least four people were killed, including one child, with dozens more injured, regional officials said.
The bombardment came hours before Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Russia may launch “massive strikes on Christmas,” warning his country was suffering a “shortage of air defense systems.”
Zelenskyy said Monday that talks between American, Ukrainian and European officials in Miami over the weekend had been “quite solid and dignified.” He conceded that “not everything is perfect so far,” but that a “plan is in place,” including the “security guarantees” that he and his European allies say is essential in any deal to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin from attacking again.
President Donald Trump told reporters Monday at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach that the discussions were “going OK” and that “we are talking.”
However, Russian officials, who over the weekend held their own talks with the U.S. team in the Sunshine State, continued to downplay any sense of progress and Moscow still shows little sign of yielding from the maximalist war demands that Ukraine surrender territory, reduce its army and never join NATO.
Asked if there had been a breakthrough, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday, “No, of course not. It’s a work in progress.”
In a separate interview with the Izvestia newspaper, Peskov said the main aim of the “meticulous” and “expert level” talks was to get a sense of what the other side had been discussing and to see whether that was acceptable to the Kremlin.
Representing Russia in Florida was Putin’s envoy and the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Kirill Dmitriev. The Kremlin expected him to “bring back some signals that the Americans received from the Europeans and the Ukrainians,” Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said Sunday. “We’ll discuss all of this here, and see what can be accepted and what absolutely cannot be.”
While the diplomats jetted back from the States, Russia was preparing its largest missile and drone attack launched at Ukraine since October.