Russia continues power station strikes

AT THE TABLE: Zelenskiy said he hoped his meeting with Russian and US negotiators next week in Abu Dhabi would pave the way for a face-to-face meeting with Putin

Russia has hit two power stations in the Ukrainian regions of Kyiv and Zhytomyr, the Russian Ministry of Defense wrote on Telegram yesterday, keeping up nearly daily strikes on its neighbor’s energy facilities amid falling temperatures.

The strikes, which also targeted a cargo vessel at sea near Odesa, follow Tuesday’s bombardments with missiles and drones that knocked out power to swathes of Ukraine, a week before US-brokered peace talks were set to resume.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday said that more than 50 people could be trapped under rubble in a Ukrainian village where a Russian attack killed 33 people, in what he called one of Moscow’s worst attacks of the war.

Rescuers work at the site of the Russian strike on an educational facility in Komyshuvakha, Ukraine, on Monday.

Photo: Ukrainian Emergency Service

Russia pummeled Ukraine on Monday and Tuesday after a rare truce between the enemies ended at the weekend, with the strikes dampening hopes for a breakthrough at US-led negotiations set for next week in Abu Dhabi.

Rescue operations were ongoing in the frontline southeastern village of Komyshuvakha, where Russian forces had struck a former school building that Ukraine said was being used to distribute aid every Monday.

“Just one strike killed 33 people. Five people were rescued and more than 50 may still be trapped under the rubble,” Zelenskiy said, describing it as “one of the largest Russian killings of this war.”

Police officers give water to a dog injured by a Russian airstrike on an underground school in Komyshuvakha, Ukraine, on Monday.

Photo: AP

The UN’s rights mission in Ukraine slammed the attack.

“Either the Russian armed forces knew that there was a humanitarian distribution taking place, or they failed to take the most basic steps to find out what was happening in this village,” UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine head Danielle Bell said.

The attack hit hours after a ceasefire held for several days in the Kherson region, allowing for a rare humanitarian mission.

A Russian strike on a hospital in Kharkiv on Tuesday also wounded dozens, Zelenskiy said, with Ukrainian authorities reporting another four dead across the country.

Zelenskiy, the Kremlin and Washington confirmed their negotiators would meet in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday and Wednesday next week for the first talks between all three sides since February.

Visiting Berlin on Tuesday, Zelenskiy said he hoped that the gathering would pave the way for his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“We are counting on the fact that work in this format and our other diplomatic steps will open the way to a trilateral format at the level of leaders,” he told reporters.

Zelenskiy has consistently pushed for a meeting with Putin, who sent Russian troops over the border in 2022, unleashing Europe’s worst war since World War II.

However, Putin has repeatedly refused face-to-face talks with Zelenskiy.

Speaking alongside Zelenskiy, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he saw no sign that Russia was willing to engage seriously in ending its invasion.

“It is important that Russia finally and seriously engages in negotiations about a ceasefire and a subsequent peace agreement,” he said. “I do not see that happening so far.”