KYIV, UKRAINE – Russia launched massive strikes across Ukraine on Tuesday, killing at least three people including a four-year-old girl and plunging thousands into darkness during freezing winter temperatures, as diplomatic efforts to end the nearly four-year war showed little progress.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the pre-Christmas assault, saying it demonstrated the Kremlin’s unwillingness to end the invasion it launched in February 2022. The attacks came using 635 drones and 38 missiles, Ukraine’s air force reported.
“An attack ahead of Christmas, when people simply want to be with their families, at home, and safe. An attack carried out essentially in the midst of negotiations aimed at ending this war,” Zelensky said. “Putin still cannot accept that he must stop killing.”
The strikes occurred one day after a Russian general was killed in a car blast in Moscow and following separate talks in Miami between both sides and US officials aimed at ending the conflict. There has been no sign of an imminent diplomatic breakthrough.
In the central Zhytomyr region, a four-year-old girl born in 2021 died after a Russian drone struck her residential building. Regional head Vitaliy Bunechko said doctors fought to save her life but were unsuccessful. Additional deaths were reported in the Kyiv and Khmelnytskyi regions.
PHOTO: AFP / UKRAINIAN EMERGENCY SERVICE
Russia’s army said it had targeted military and energy sites with long-range drones and hypersonic missiles, forcing emergency power cuts across several regions in frigid winter weather.
The southern Black Sea region of Odesa was heavily targeted as Russia intensifies attacks on the crucial port city. Ukrainian authorities say the strikes aim to completely destroy Ukraine’s maritime logistics.
Olena Dolhachova, a 40-year-old Odesa math teacher, described working by candlelight. “There are attacks every week. Just when power is restored, all our schedules are disrupted again, we are left without electricity, without stability, sitting in the dark for two or three days,” she told AFP.
Anastasiia Kulakivska, an Odesa beauty salon manager, said “seven days without electricity has become the norm.” She described struggling to keep medicine at proper temperatures without refrigeration and needing generators for basic family needs. “It’s about health. For example, when your child is sick, you need to plug in an inhaler, and it can’t run on batteries.”
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said energy facilities in western Ukraine were most affected by the strikes. Neighboring Poland scrambled jets to protect its airspace during the assault, the Polish military confirmed.
On the eastern battlefield, Russia claimed to have captured settlements in the Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, continuing a grinding advance that has accelerated recently.
Moscow reported “slow progress” in talks over the US plan to end the war on Monday, as Kyiv and European allies seek to modify an initial proposal that adhered to many of Russia’s hardline demands.
Despite the ongoing attacks and power outages disrupting online classes, Ukrainian educators remain defiant. “Despite everything, we are working, we are teaching… We are not giving up,” Dolhachova said.
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