While Russia and the United States negotiate Donald Trump’s peace plan in Abu Dhabi, a Russian bombing this Tuesday left a new trail of death in Kiev. The invader’s missiles and drones caused at least six deaths and around twenty injuries in the early hours of the morning.
The attack once again had the capital’s electricity and water networks as its main targets. The invader used more than 460 drones with Shahed long-range bombs and 22 ballistic and cruise missiles. The victims occurred in two neighborhoods of Kiev, in residential and industrial areas.
Tuesday’s attack is yet another in Russia’s ongoing campaign to destroy the invaded country’s energy system. The citizens of Kiev have been living with electricity blackouts for more than 12 hours a day and interruptions in heating and water systems for a month. The difference is that this attack occurred while the delegations of the Kremlin and Washington were negotiating since Monday in Abu Dhabi the contents of the so-called “peace plan” with which the American president wants to reach a consensus with the two warring parties.
“The main target (of the enemy) was the energy system and everything that guarantees normal life,” Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on his social networks. The Ukrainian president stressed, without citing Trump, that negotiations to end the war must be conducted as a team, between Western allies, and not bilaterally: “The key now is for all partners to move together in diplomacy, with united efforts, so that the pressure on Russia works.”
Zelenskyj’s words also invite us to correct the mess caused by Trump’s peace plan, drawn up at the end of October between two trusted men of Trump and Putin, Steve Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev. The result was a 28-point text that was a humiliation for Ukraine because it covered virtually all Russian demands.
Trump and Zelensky’s teams met last weekend in Geneva, Switzerland, to review the document. The negotiations made it possible to postpone the decision on the most controversial points to a future conversation between the two presidents.
Since yesterday in Abu Dhabi the United States has been evaluating the contents of the modified plan with a Russian delegation. Leading Trump’s emissaries is US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. It was Driscoll who officially handed over the controversial plan to Zelensky on November 20 in Kiev.
The day before, November 19, a massive Russian bombing of Ukraine’s western provinces left 35 people dead in the city of Ternopil. The last attack on Kiev with numerous casualties occurred on November 14, when Russia killed 7 civilians.
One difference between this morning’s bombing and the previous two is that Russia acted with two phases of missile attacks. The usual Russian tactic is for waves of Shahed drones to arrive in the target area first, to saturate the anti-aircraft defenses. The last phase is the launch of the missiles. On this occasion there was a first phase in which cruise and ballistic missiles coincided over Kiev; then the swarms of Shahed appeared. Already early in the morning Russia ended its concert of destruction with a new launch of cruise and ballistic missiles.
