Over 200 strike drones were launched overnight against Ukraine, killing at least two people and wounding dozens more, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday.
He wrote on X that the Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi, and Odesa regions were under attack.
Zelenskyy offered condolences to the families of those killed and again called on allies to increase support.
“This week alone has seen more than 1,300 attack drones, around 1,050 guided aerial bombs and 29 missiles of various types in total. That is why Ukraine still needs more protection โ above all, more missiles for air defense systems,” he said.
Zelenskyy accused Russia of deliberately dragging out diplomatic efforts to end the nearly four-year-old warย while pounding Ukraine.
The Russian attack comes as US and Ukrainian officials are set to meet in Miami to discuss security guarantees and a postwar recovery package for Ukraine.
Major cities, including the capital city of Kyiv, have experienced blackouts and heating disruptions as Russia attacks a power grid that is already weakened by a cold snap. Residents are struggling amid temperatures reaching minus 16 degrees Celsius.
On Saturday, Zelenskiy announced that he had ordered the acceleration of electricity imports and the procurement of additional power equipment.
Power cuts in occupiedย southern Ukraine
Meanwhile, more than 200,000 homes in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine were left without power following an attack by the Ukrainian army, according to the Moscow-installed authorities on Sunday.
Yevgeny Balitsky, the Moscow-installed governor of the Russian-occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region, said the attack cut power to 213,000 customers and 386 localities in the region.
On Saturday evening, Vladimir Saldo, the Moscow-installed governor of the neighboring Kherson region, said that a Ukrainian strike had hit an electrical substation, causing outages in 14 towns and 450 villages.
In recent months, Russia has launched daily drone and missile attacks on Ukraine, targeting energy infrastructure and cutting power and heating in the frigid depths of winter.
Edited by: Jenipher Camino Gonzalez