By Burc Eruygur
ISTANBUL (AA) - Ukraine said on Saturday that at least one person was killed and 23 others were injured in Russian airstrikes on the capital Kyiv and the city of Kharkiv, even as trilateral peace negotiations take place in the United Arab Emirates.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that fires broke out at various buildings in several districts of the city due to the overnight attack.
“Currently, one person is known to have died and four injured. Three of the injured have been hospitalized,” Klitschko said, adding that there are interruptions in heat and water supply on the city’s left bank.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Mayor Ihor Terekhov reported fires at apartment buildings and said a hospital and a maternity hospital were damaged in an attack on the northeastern city.
He particularly noted the city’s Industrialnyi and Nemyshlianskyi districts were the “hardest hit areas,” saying that 25 Russian drones targeted the city.
Terekhov reported that seven people were injured, later saying the number rose to 19.
Russian authorities have not yet commented on the attacks.
The reports came after Russia, Ukraine, and the US on Friday concluded the first of two days of trilateral talks in the Emirati capital Adu Dhabi.
Ukraine’s chief negotiator Rustem Umerov said on US social media platform that the talks are focused on the parameters for ending the conflict with “a dignified and lasting peace.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state news agency Tass that efforts to resolve the war are “progressing,” stressing the importance of implementing what he called the “Anchorage formula,” a reference to a meeting last August in the US state of Alaska between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.