KYIV: Four people were killed in a wave of Russian strikes across Ukraine on Wednesday, the government said, as US envoy Steve Witkoff headed to Saint Petersburg for talks.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Sergiy Koretsky said two people were killed when a drone struck a 24-storey building in the capital, Kyiv, while two others died in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
The head of the Kharkiv regional state administration, Oleg Synegubov, said the victims were an elderly couple, aged 81 and 83. Emergency services found their bodies beneath the rubble after their house was destroyed.
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The latest attacks came as Witkoff wrapped up talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Norway on Tuesday before travelling to Russia on Wednesday to meet President Vladimir Putin.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the talks as “positive”, following rising tensions between Kyiv and Washington in recent weeks over the course of the nearly five-year war.
Koretsky wrote on Telegram that Russian forces had been striking energy infrastructure, railways, shopping centres and residential buildings “continuously” since Tuesday night.
Further strikes included an attack on a university building in the central city of Kremenchuk, as well as attacks on energy facilities in Kyiv, Volyn in the northwest, and Odesa and Mykolaiv in the south.
Koretsky also said a drone had attacked a merchant vessel in the Black Sea.
Power company DTEK said emergency power cuts had been imposed in three parts of Kyiv, alongside scheduled outages elsewhere in the city.