Russia launches more than 200 missiles, drones at Ukraine

KYIV – Russia battered Ukraine with more than 200 missiles and drones early Sunday – its largest combined attack in months – sending residents scrambling from their beds to bomb shelters, damaging energy infrastructure and killing at least two people just ahead of the 1,000-day mark since its full-scale invasion of the country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia used 120 cruise, ballistic and aeroballistic missiles and 90 drones, including Iranian-made Shaheds, in the attack. Ukrainian forces shot down more than 140 of them, he said.

The attack killed two people in the southern port city of Mykolaiv and wounded six others, including two children, Zelenskyy said.

Ukrainian energy company DTEK said Russian forces shelled its thermal power plants, seriously damaging equipment. DTEK said the overnight attack was the eighth “mass attack” on the company’s plants this year. Russia has regularly targeted energy infrastructure across the country, limiting Ukraine’s ability to power homes and businesses.

DTEK CEO Maxim Timchenko wrote in a statement Sunday that Russia had resumed strikes on its facilities, adding: “These attacks again highlight Ukraine’s need for additional air defense systems from our allies to prevent more destruction.”

“The supply of power to millions this winter depends upon it,” he added.

Ukrainians are bracing for a potentially painful winter, with energy officials warning that Russian attacks could cause more rolling blackouts across the country and limit heating during the coldest months of the year.

The early-morning attack Sunday came more than a week after the Washington Post reported that President-elect Donald Trump spoke by phone to Russian President Vladimir Putin, urging him not to escalate the war in Ukraine, in a call the Kremlin denied had occurred.

On Friday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also spoke with Putin, marking the first time the Kremlin publicly acknowledged a phone call with a sitting Western leader in almost two years. Germany said Scholz urged Putin – who is at an advantage on the battlefield in terms of manpower and equipment – to consider negotiations with Ukraine to end the war.

The call angered Ukrainian officials, including Zelenskyy, who said it amounted to “exactly what Putin has wanted for a long time.” Ukraine has long stated publicly that it will not relent to foreign pressure to give up the territory Russia has seized. Scholz’s call may have paved the way for other leaders to engage in such communications, Zelenskyy said, adding that Putin is seeking to reverse his years-long isolation following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X that the Sunday attack demonstrates Putin’s real views on the direction of the war in Ukraine.

“This is war criminal Putin’s true response to all those who called and visited him recently,” he said. “We need peace through strength, not appeasement.”

A growing number of Ukraine’s European partners have begun discussing potential compromises that could end the war. Privately, many Ukrainians have pondered whether such sacrifices would help end the war that has devastated the country for nearly three years.

Western leaders have expressed growing concern over the next stages of the conflict since North Korea and Russia signed a military agreement and Pyongyang sent troops to train in Russia. At least 10,000 of those troops are now deployed to the border region of Kursk, according to U.S. intelligence estimates.

Ukrainian forces control a swath of territory in that region, seized in an August offensive aimed at giving Ukraine a buffer zone along its northern border and an upper hand in potential territorial negotiations.