By Samya Kullab and Joanna Kozlowska | Associated Press
KYIV, Ukraine — A Russian drone slammed into an apartment building in eastern Ukraine early Saturday while many were sleeping, killing three people and wounding 12 others, Ukrainian authorities reported.
The attack in Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth-largest city, was part of a large Russian missile and drone barrage across the country that targeted power infrastructure and also killed a worker at an energy company in Kharkiv, farther north, a local official said.
A fire broke out and several apartments were destroyed in the nine-story building in Dnipro, the emergency services said. Rescuers recovered the bodies of three people, while two children were among the wounded.
Russia fired a total of 458 drones and 45 missiles, including 32 ballistic missiles. Ukrainian forces shot down and neutralized 406 drones and nine missiles, the air force said, adding that 25 locations were struck.
Authorities switched off power in several regions because of the attacks, Ukrainian Energy Minister Svitlana Grynchuk said in a post on Facebook.
In eastern Ukraine, fighting for the strategic city of Pokrovsk has reached a key stage, with both Kyiv and Moscow vying to persuade U.S. President Donald Trump that they can win on the battlefield.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday that work has begun on President Vladimir Putin’s order to prepare plans for a possible Russian nuclear test, according to state news agency Tass.
Putin’s order on Wednesday followed statements by Trump, which appeared to suggest that Washington would restart its own atomic tests for the first time in three decades. During a news briefing Saturday, Lavrov said that Russia had received no clarification from the U.S. regarding its intentions.
Energy sites attacked
Russia has been pummeling Ukraine with near-daily drone and missile strikes, killing and wounding civilians. The Kremlin says its only targets are linked to Kyiv’s war effort. Russia’s Defense Ministry asserted Saturday that the nighttime strikes hit military and energy sites supplying Ukrainian forces.
Moscow and Kyiv have traded almost daily assaults on each other’s energy targets as U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to stop the nearly four-year war had no impact on the battlefield.
Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes on Russian refineries aim to deprive Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to pursue the war. Russia wants to cripple the Ukrainian power grid and deny civilians access to heat, light and running water in what Kyiv officials say is an attempt to “weaponize winter.”
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said in an X post that the strikes damaged “several major energy facilities” around Kharkiv and Kyiv, as well as in the central Poltava region. An energy company worker was killed in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, regional head Oleh Syniehubov said in a post on Telegram.
“We are working to eliminate the consequences of the attacks across the country. The focus is on the rapid restoration of heating, electricity and water supply,” Svyrydenko added.
Thermal power plants operated by Ukraine’s state energy company Centrenergo were again knocked offline by the nighttime strikes, the company said in a statement Saturday. Centrenergo’s three plants in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Donetsk regions were damaged by Russian attacks last year and subsequently restored.
The very same plants that were targeted last year and restored were struck again “each minute” by Russian drones, the company said.Russian forces, meanwhile, repelled a “massive” nighttime strike on energy facilities in the southern Volgograd region, Gov. Andrei Bocharov said Saturday, two days after Ukraine said that it hit a key oil refinery there with long-range drones. Bocharov added that the strike knocked out power in parts of the region’s northwest, but caused no casualties. There was no immediate comment from Kyiv.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday that its forces shot down 82 Ukrainian drones during the night, including eight over the Volgograd region. Two people were wounded in the neighboring Saratov region after a Ukrainian drone strike blew out windows in an apartment building, according to regional Gov. Roman Busarin.
Russian oil
Following weeks of long-range strikes on Russia’s energy infrastructure that Ukraine says both funds and directly fuels the Kremlin’s war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed on Friday to “find a way to ensure there is no Russian oil in Europe.”
Zelenskyy spoke to reporters shortly after Hungary secured an exemption from recent U.S. sanctions targeting major Russian oil producers.
“We will not allow it. We will not let the Russians sell oil there. It’s a matter of time,” he said at a news briefing after meeting with senior Ukrainian military leaders, without elaborating how Kyiv might seek to stanch the oil flows.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a Trump ally who has long urged the European Union to repair ties with Moscow, argues that landlocked Hungary has no viable alternatives to Russian crude, and that replacing those supplies would trigger an economic collapse. Critics dispute that claim.
The Trump administration unveiled sanctions against Russia’s major state-affiliated oil firms Rosneft and Lukoil last month, a move that could expose their foreign buyers — including customers in Central Europe, India and China — to secondary sanctions.
While most of the EU’s 27 member states sharply reduced or halted imports of Russian fossil fuels after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Hungary and Slovakia have maintained their pipeline deliveries. Hungary has even increased the share of Russian oil in its energy mix.
Fighting for Pokrovsk
The city of Pokrovsk sits along the eastern front line, part of what has been dubbed the “fortress belt” of Donetsk, a line of heavily fortified cities crucial to Ukraine’s defense of the region. It could also be a key point in influencing Washington’s stance and sway the course of peace negotiations, analysts say.
Putin says his forces are on the cusp of winning. As a prerequisite for peace, he demands that Ukraine cede the Donbas, made up of Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk.
Russia troops advanced near Pokrovsk and the nearby town of Myrnohrad, according to the Russian Defense Ministry on Saturday, saying both were encircled. It also said Russian forces surrounded Ukrainian defenders in Kupiansk, a key railway hub in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
Kyiv didn’t immediately respond to Moscow’s statements, which couldn’t be independently verified. Ukrainian officials have previously acknowledged that the situation in Pokrovsk is dire. But they said there was no blockade either there or in Kupiansk, and that fighting continued.
Joanna Kozlowska reported from London.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Associated Press
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