Ukraine has condemned a massive Russian overnight attack as an attempt to upend peace negotiations in the United Arab Emirates aimed at ending the nearly four-year-long full-scale war.
As negotiators from the United States, Russia, and Ukraine met for the second day in the UAE’s capital, Abu Dhabi, on January 24, at least one person was killed and scores more were injured in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and the frontline city of Kharkiv.
Both cities were hit with Russian missile and drone barrages in the early morning hours of January 24, according to Ukrainian authorities.
“Cynically, Putin ordered a brutal, massive missile strike against Ukraine right while delegations are meeting in Abu Dhabi to advance the America-led peace process,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha wrote on X.
“His missiles hit not only our people, but also the negotiation table,” he added.
Ukrainian authorities said Moscow fired over 370 attack drones and 21 missiles of various types.
In Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said over 6,000 apartment buildings lost heating after the attack, and fire crews struggled to contain several blazes. He said that the houses that lost power had their central heating recently restored after large-scale air strikes on January 9 and January 20.
Temperatures in Kyiv hovered around -10 Celsius on January 24 as thousands of households were left without heating.
In Kharkiv, a nighttime drone attack injured 27 people, according regional head Oleh Syniehubov. City mayor Ihor Terekhov said the attack lasted nearly two and a half hours with one of the drones striking a refugee dormitory, and other strikes damaging a hospital and a maternity hospital.
The Russian strikes have also left more than 1.2 million properties across the country without power.
"Every such Russian strike on our energy infrastructure proves that there must be no delays in supplying air defenses," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after the attacks. "No blind eye can be turned to these strikes."
Meanwhile, in the first direct contact between Russia and Ukraine in months, negotiations in Abu Dhabi were expected to continue on January 24. Neither side has announced any concrete results so far.
Ahead of the negotiations, Kremlin aides said Russian President Vladimir Putin was satisfied with nearly four hours of talks held overnight with White House envoy Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and US officials.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated Russia's longstanding demand that Ukrainian forces leave the portion of the Donbas they still hold. The Donbas is a wide swath of territory in eastern Ukraine; Russia controls around 90 percent of it.
"Russia's well-known position is that [Ukraine's armed forces] must leave the territory of the Donbas, they must be withdrawn from there," Peskov told journalists. "This is a very important precondition."
Zelenskyy, who met with US President Donald Trump in Switzerland a day earlier, told reporters the talks would include the issue of territory in the Donbas.
