By Dan Peleschuk
KYIV, Dec 23 (Reuters) – Russian missile and drone attacks killed at least three Ukrainians including a child on Tuesday, triggering widespread emergency power cuts and prompting neighbouring Poland to scramble jets.
The attacks, days after another round of U.S.-led talks to end the nearly four-year-old war, hit energy facilities in western regions the hardest, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said.
Poland, a NATO member bordering western Ukraine, said Polish and allied aircraft were deployed to protect Polish airspace after Russian strikes targeted areas near the border.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia had targeted at least 13 regions as Ukrainians prepared to celebrate Christmas with their families in an attack that showed Russian President Vladimir Putin was not serious about peace talks.
“Putin still cannot accept that he must stop killing,” Zelenskiy wrote on X. “And that means that the world is not putting enough pressure on Russia. Now is the time to respond.”
YOUNG CHILD KILLED
A four-year-old child was killed in the central Zhytomyr region, another person in Khmelnytskyi in western Ukraine and a third person outside the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, where local officials said at least five were also wounded.
Russia’s defence ministry said it had attacked Ukrainian energy and military facilities and captured two villages along the front line in Ukraine. There was no immediate comment from Kyiv, which often disputes Russian reports of territorial gains.
Moscow has stepped up strikes on Ukrainian energy and logistics to boost pressure on Kyiv as it seeks to alter the terms of a U.S.-backed peace deal. Ukraine has targeted Russian energy exports.
A Ukrainian overnight drone attack sparked a fire at an industrial facility in Russia’s southern Stavropol region, the region’s governor, Vladimir Vladimirov, said. Authorities also reported a fire at the fuel oil supply pipeline at the port of Taman in Krasnodar region, saying it had been put out.
The Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched 635 drones and 38 missiles, most of which had been downed.
Ukraine’s energy ministry said all regions were experiencing emergency power outages, adding that nearly all consumers in the western Rivne, Ternopil and Khmelnytskyi regions were without power early on Tuesday.
Critical and energy infrastructure was damaged in the northern Chernihiv, western Lviv and southern Odesa regions, local authorities said. Private energy firm DTEK said one of its thermal power plants had suffered damage.
Weekend peace talks in Miami brought together U.S. officials with Ukrainian and European delegations, alongside separate contacts with Russian representatives, as Washington tested the scope for a settlement.
Russia has demanded that Ukraine cede its eastern Donbas region and significantly restrict its military capabilities before it stops fighting, terms which Zelenskiy has rejected.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Dan Peleschuk; Writing by Lidia Kelly and Dan Peleschuk; Editing by Himani Sarkar, Michael Perry, Philippa Fletcher)
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