AN OVERNIGHT RUSSIAN drone and missile attack has targeted critical infrastructure, including energy sites and railways, triggering heating and water outages for thousands of households, Kyiv said today.

The latest wave of aerial strikes comes as Ukrainian negotiators are set to meet in Florida with American envoys for a third straight day of talks on the US-drafted plan on how to end the almost four-year war.

Overnight, Russia launched 653 drones and 51 missiles at Ukraine, Kyiv’s air force said.

“The main targets of these strikes, once again, were energy facilities. Russia’s aim is to inflict suffering on millions of Ukrainians,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media.

A Russian drone strike hit and “burned down the main railway station building in Fastiv,” a city around 70km southwest of Kyiv, Zelenskyy said.

“There were no casualties but suburban train traffic has been disrupted,” Ukraine’s state rail operator Ukrzaliznytsya added.

The drones and missiles had also targeted energy facilities in the Chernigiv, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions, Kyiv officials said.

“In the Odesa region, 9,500 subscribers remain without heat supply and 34,000 subscribers remain without water supply due to damage,” Restoration Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said.

An emergency coordination meeting of ministers was convened in the wake of the strikes, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said on X.

“During the ongoing elimination of the consequences of this attack, additional rolling power outages will be required across the country” to stabilise the system while repairs continued, she added.

Despite the US-led push to end the conflict, Russia has routinely targeted Ukraine’s power and heating grid since its February 2022 invasion, destroying a large part of the key civilian infrastructure.