Nearly a third of the Ukrainian capital was left without heat amid freezing temperatures after Russian drones and missiles knocked out municipal heating plants. At least one person was killed, and more than two dozen wounded in the overnight barrage.
Ukrainian officials ordered emergency power cuts for large parts of Kyiv, in response to the December 27 attacks.
"This is the first time that so many drones have hit the city center," Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko told reporters.
The hours-long Russian assault targeting residential homes and civilian infrastructure in Kyiv and elsewhere came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepared for critical talks with US President Donald Trump on a Washington-backed peace plan.
The White House, which made no formal announcement about the meeting, released a schedule showing Zelenskyy and Trump meeting in Florida on the afternoon on December 28.
“I think they want to do it now, and I think that Russia wants to do it. But every time one wants to do it, the other doesn’t,” Trump was quoted as telling the New York Post on December 26.
In comments to reporters traveling with him to the United States, Zelenskyy again signaled that there was room for compromise.
One of the critical issues now at the heart of the negotiations that accelerated last month with the release of a plan seen as heavily favorable to Moscow is the fate of the eastern Donbas region.
Most of that territory is under Russian control, and Moscow has demanded that Kyiv turn over that parts Russia does not hold. That includes two major cities -- Kramatorsk and Slovyansk -- which are linchpins for Ukrainian defenses in the area.
Zelenskyy has proposed a compromise that calls for establishing a demilitarized zone in which both Ukraine and Russia would withdraw their forces. Foreign forces would then monitor the demilitarized buffer area.
The Ukrainian leader has floated the idea of holding a referendum on the plan, though he also cautioned that a 60-day cease-fire would be necessary to ensure people could vote safely.
In comments to reporters, Zelenskyy pushed back on an idea proposed by Moscow that Ukrainian citizens living in Russia be allowed to vote in any such referendum. Ukrainian officials say that would open the door to fraud.
The other critical issue is the fate of Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant. The Zaporizhzhya region facility, which was Ukraine's largest single source of electricity, has been under Russian control since shortly after the start of the all-out invasion in February 2022.
Zelenskyy has proposed putting the plant under joint control between Ukraine and the United States, with Washington netting profits from the sale of the plant’s electricity -- including potentially to Moscow.
The Kremlin, which believes it has the upper hand both on the battlefield and in the peace negotiations, has showed little willingness to compromise on its hard-line demands -- most of which predate the invasion.
The overnight attack on Kyiv, which included hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles, killed one person and wounded at least 28 people, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said; large swaths of city districts on the eastern banks of the Dnieper River were without power and water, he said in a post to Telegram.
Ukraine's largest private power company said nearly a third of Kyiv had been left without electricity.
"Today, Russia demonstrated its reaction to peace negotiations.... They launched a massive attack on Ukraine," Zelenskyy said. "It's the very same Russia demonstrating this while [we're] on the way to peace negotiations."
A day earlier, Russia launched heavy glide bombs at Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, killing at least two people and wounded several others.
Ukraine’s largest port city, Odesa, has been battered for several days in a row.
