At least eight people have been killed in Odesa in southern Ukraine and 27 more were wounded after a deadly Russian missile strike on port infrastructure on Friday evening.
Some of those wounded in Odesa were on a bus at the centre of the strike last night, according to emergency services.
Trucks caught fire in the parking lot and cars were also damaged.
The port was struck with ballistic missiles, said Oleh Kiper, the head of the Odesa region.
The latest attack from Vladimir Putin‘s armed forces comes after he wrapped up his end of year press conference in Moscow, in which he declared he was ‘ready and willing’ for Ukraine peace talks.
The strikes also came as a Kremlin envoy was gearing up to travel to Florida for talks on a US-proposed plan to end the nearly four-year war.
The discussions are part of the Trump administration’s monthslong push for peace that also included meetings with Ukrainian and European officials in Berlin earlier this week.
Ukraine’s chief negotiator said late Friday that his delegation had completed separate meetings in the U.S. with American and European partners.
A truck burns at the site of a Russian missile and drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Odesa region
The latest attack from Vladimir Putin’s armed forces comes after he wrapped up his end of year press conference in Moscow, in which he declared he was ‘ready and willing’ for Ukraine peace talks. Pictured: Putin tastes pastries from a bakery sent by its owner following his annual end-of-year press conference on December 20
Meanwhile, European Union leaders agreed on Friday to provide a massive interest-free loan to Ukraine to meet its military and economic needs for the next two years.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said much will depend on the U.S. posture after discussions with the Russians.
Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv with Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, Zelenskyy said that ‘the key question remains how the United States responds after consultations with the Russians. At this point, I honestly don’t know, but I will know later today.’
Moscow did not immediately acknowledge reports of the attack on Saturday. The Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday that over the previous day, it had struck unspecified ‘transport and storage infrastructure used by the Ukrainian armed forces,’ along with energy facilities and those supplying Kyiv’s war effort.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian drones hit a Russian oil rig, the military patrol ship Okhotnik and other facilities, Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement Saturday. It said the ship was patrolling in the Caspian Sea near an oil and gas production platform. The extent of the damage was still being clarified, it said.
The drilling platform at the Filanovsky oil and gas field as also hit. The facility is operated by Russian oil giant Lukoil. Ukrainian drones also struck a radar system in the Krasnosilske area of Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
There was no immediate comment from the Russian government or Lukoil. The company is one of two Russian oil majors – alongside state-owned Gazprom – targeted by recent U.S. sanctions that aim to deprive Moscow of oil export revenue that helps it sustain the war.
Kyiv has used similar arguments to justify months of long-range strikes on Russian oil infrastructure, which it says both funds and directly fuels the Kremlin’s all-out invasion, soon to enter its fifth year.
Trump’s peace push set to continue Saturday
At least eight people were killed and 27 more injured following the attack in Odesa
A firefighter works at the site of a Russian missile and drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Odesa region
Some of those wounded in Odesa were on a bus at the centre of the strike last night
U.S. President Donald Trump has unleashed an extensive diplomatic push to end the war, but his efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently signalled he is digging in on his maximalist demands on Ukraine, as Moscow’s troops inch forward on the battlefield despite huge losses.
On Friday, Putin voiced confidence that the Kremlin would achieve its goals militarily if Kyiv doesn’t agree to Russia’s conditions in peace talks.
EU leaders have agreed to provide £79 billion to Ukraine to meet its military and economic needs for the next two years, although they failed to bridge differences with Belgium that would have allowed them to use frozen Russian assets to raise the funds. Instead, they were borrowed on capital markets.
After almost four years of war, the International Monetary Fund estimates that Ukraine will need £120 billion in 2026 and 2027. The government in Kyiv is on the verge of bankruptcy, and desperately needs the money by spring.
Meanwhile, Kirill Dmitriev, who heads Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, is set to meet with Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in Miami on Saturday, according to a U.S. official.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity to preview a meeting that hasn’t yet been publicly announced.
The official said Witkoff and Kushner will sit down with Dmitriev, after meetings with Ukrainian and European officials in Berlin for talks on U.S. security guarantees for Kyiv, territorial concessions and other aspects of the American-authored plan.
Ukraine’s chief negotiator Rustem Umerov said late Friday that a Ukrainian delegation had met with American and European partners in the U.S. He gave few details, but said they agreed to continue ‘joint work in the near future.’
Asked about the meeting in Miami, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that Moscow was preparing for contacts with the U.S. to learn about the results of the meetings in Berlin, but he didn’t give details.