Russia launched 36 missiles, 172 drones targeting energy facilities in Kyiv, says Zelensky

President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday said that Russia attacked Ukraine using 172 drones and 36 ballistic missiles in the overnight strikes on Ukraine. All the missiles were aimed at capital Kyiv and the surrounding regions, Zelensky said, Reuters reported.

One person was reportedly killed, while eight, including a child, were left injured in the attack on Ukrainian capital region.

The strikes that targeted Kyiv and surrounding areas damaged Ukrainian energy infrastructure and a major bridge across the Dnipro River, officials were quoted as saying. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the strikes rocked the city as Russia fired multiple waves of ballistic missiles, several of them hitting the Northern Bridge.

Authorities said the strikes damaged homes and non-residential buildings, authorities said.

Russia said that it carried out a massive strike on 'targets in Ukraine's military-industrial sector', as well as energy and transport infrastructure in and around Kyiv.

Over the past few weeks, Russia has intensified its air attacks on Ukraine while the ground offensive has been largely stalled. Energy infrastructure in major cities have been targeted with difficult-to-intercept missiles and drones nearly five years into its full-scale invasion.

The Kremlin has expanded its campaign in recent weeks to target Kyiv's bridges, snarling traffic in the city of more than 3 million.

Russian defence ministry said the latest strikes also damaged energy infrastructure in the central Zhytomyr region.

They come days before a new round of three-way talks in Abu Dhabi between Ukrainian and Russian officials, as part of a US-backed peace push that has so far yielded few results.

Amid the escalation in the conflict, European nations want Russia to halt its war against Ukraine before entertaining any talk of the Kremlin's concerns about the continent's broader security architecture, Bloomberg reported quoting sources. The report also added that the European officials are adamant that Russian President Vladimir Putin's pre-war demands that would effectively roll back NATO's presence in Eastern Europe are still unacceptable.

Meanwhile, a trilateral meeting between Russia, Ukraine and United States are scheduled to be held in Abu Dhabi from November 10-11 for talks to end the war that has been going on since February 2022.

The new round of negotiations would be the fourth brokered by the Trump administration, following the most recent round in Geneva in February.