Power supplies to Ukraine’s capital remained patchy on Sunday after a Russian drone and missile barrage that left hundreds of thousands of people facing freezing temperatures.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is preparing to hold face-to-face talks on Sunday with Donald Trump, said Moscow had used nearly 500 drones and 40 missiles, including ballistic missiles, in the attack early on Saturday.
“The primary target is Kyiv – energy facilities and civilian infrastructure,” he said in a post on X. On Sunday Ukraine’s leading private energy provider said it had restored power to nearly 750,000 households in Kyiv but that the situation remained “more difficult” on the left bank, where emergency outages were still in force.
The intense overnight strikes lasted 10 hours and killed one person and wounded two dozen others, came as the Ukrainian leader headed to Florida for a the meeting with the US president, who has proposed a plan to end nearly four years of fighting that has killed tens of thousands.
Zelenskyy stopped in Canada, where he met the country’s prime minister, Mark Carney, who announced an additional $2.5bn (£1.85bn) of economic aid for Ukraine.
Carney condemned the latest “barbaric” attack on Kyiv. He said: “We have the conditions, the possibility, for the just and lasting peace,” adding this requires a “willing Russia”.
Zelenskyy spoke by video call with European allies.
Macron highlighted what he called the “contrast” between “the willingness of Ukraine to build a lasting peace and Russia’s determination to prolong the war that it started”, Elysee officials said.
The EU chiefs Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa said the European Union’s support for Ukraine would not falter.
“In 2026, the EU Commission will continue to keep up the pressure on the Kremlin, sustain our support to Ukraine, and work intensely to accompany Ukraine on its path toward EU membership,” von der Leyen said on Saturday.
Zelenskyy said he would hold talks with European leaders again after meeting Trump on Sunday.
Zelenskyy said the overnight bombings showed international pressure on Russia was insufficient. “If Russia turns even the Christmas and New Year period into a time of destroyed homes and burnt apartments, of ruined power plants, then this sick activity can only be responded to with truly strong steps,” he said. “The United States has this capability. Europe has this capability. Many of our partners have this capability. The key is to use it.”
Russia’s defence ministry said it had downed 111 Ukrainian drones, in what appeared to be a retaliatory attack.
Russia claimed on Saturday to have captured two more towns in eastern Ukraine, Myrnograd and Guliaipole.
Zelenskyy has said the meeting with Trump in Florida is “specifically intended to refine things as much as we possibly can”. Speaking on Friday, he added that a proposed 20-point peace plan was “90% ready”. “Our goal is to bring everything to 100%,” Zelenskyy said. “As of today, our teams – the Ukrainian and American negotiating teams – have made significant progress.”
Zelenskyy has reportedly said he would need to seek the approval of the Ukrainian public if he failed to secure a “strong” position on territory.
After the strikes on Saturday, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said Russia’s “only response to peace efforts” was “brutal attacks using hundreds of drones and missiles against Kyiv and other cities and regions”. The minister said that a third of the capital was without heating. The temperature in Kyiv was about 0C (32F).
The Russian strikes forced Polish fighter jets to scramble, and two airports in south-eastern Poland – Rzeszów and Lublin – were temporarily closed.
The latest peace efforts follow a burst of diplomatic activity last weekend in Miami, where Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, as well as Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, separately met Russian and Ukrainian representatives.
The plan is considered an updated version of an earlier 28-point document agreed several weeks ago between the US envoys and Russian officials, a proposal widely viewed as skewed towards the Kremlin’s demands.
Ukraine has pushed for security guarantees modelled on Nato’s article 5 mutual defence pledge under any proposed peace deal with Russia, though it remains unclear whether Moscow would accept such terms.
In an interview with Politico on Friday, Trump said he anticipated a “good” meeting with the Ukrainian leader, though he offered no endorsement of Zelenskyy’s plan. “He doesn’t have anything until I approve it,” Trump told the news website. “So we’ll see what he’s got.”
The Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, used a Russian television appearance on Friday to criticise Zelenskyy and European allies on their work on the peace plan. “Our ability to make the final push and reach an agreement will depend on our own work and the political will of the other party,” Ryabkov said.
He said the proposal drawn up with Zelenskyy’s input “differs radically” from points initially drawn up by US and Russian officials in contacts this month. “Without an adequate resolution of the problems at the origin of this crisis, it will be quite simply impossible to reach a definitive accord,” Ryabkov added.