3 Killed after Moscow Targets Kyiv with Mass Drone Attack

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire following a Russian attack in near Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, March 23, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire following a Russian attack in near Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, March 23, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
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3 Killed after Moscow Targets Kyiv with Mass Drone Attack

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire following a Russian attack in near Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, March 23, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters put out the fire following a Russian attack in near Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, March 23, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

At least three people were killed, including a five-year-old child, after Russia launched a barrage of drones targeting Kyiv overnight on Sunday, according to local Ukrainian officials and emergency services.
The attack on the Ukrainian capital came ahead of ceasefire negotiations in Saudi Arabia in which Ukraine and Russia are expected to hold indirect US-mediated talks on Monday to discuss a pause in long-range attacks targeting energy facilities and civilian infrastructure.
The Ukrainian delegation is expected to meet with US officials in Saudi Arabia a day ahead of the indirect talks, Ukrainian President Voldoymyr Zelenskyy said. Ukraine is planning to send technical teams to discuss the details of the partial ceasefire.
Extended sounds of explosions were heard in the early hours of the night as the air raid blared for over five hours. Russian drones and debris from shot-down drones, which were flying at lower altitudes to evade air defenses, fell on residential buildings. Ukraine's Kyiv City Military Administration said three people were killed and 10 others were injured.
Two residential buildings in the district of Dnipro caught fire due to falling drone debris, according to Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko. A fire broke out on the top floors of a 9-storey building, killing one woman, the State Emergency Service said.
In the district of Podil, a fire broke out on the 20th floor of a 25-storey building. In Holosiivskyi, fires broke out in a warehouse and office building, killing one person, according to the State Emergency Service.



Ukraine Says Ceasefire Accords Brokered by US Take Immediate Effect

 Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks during a press conference, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine March 25, 2025. (Reuters)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks during a press conference, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine March 25, 2025. (Reuters)
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Ukraine Says Ceasefire Accords Brokered by US Take Immediate Effect

 Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks during a press conference, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine March 25, 2025. (Reuters)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks during a press conference, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine March 25, 2025. (Reuters)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said a truce with Russia covering the Black Sea and energy strikes was effective immediately on Tuesday and that he would ask Donald Trump to supply weapons and sanction Russia if Moscow broke the deals.

The United States said earlier it had made separate agreements with Kyiv and Moscow to ensure safe navigation in the Black Sea and to implement a ban on attacks on energy facilities in the two countries.

"The US side considers that our agreements come into force after their announcement by the US side," Zelenskiy told reporters at a news conference in Kyiv, adding that he did not trust Russia to honor the arrangements.

The accords are the first ones aimed at halting energy strikes since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, triggering Europe's biggest conflict since World War Two. The fighting rages on across a 1,000-km (600-mile) front line.

The Ukrainian leader cautioned that the agreements did not set out a course of action if Russia broke them and that he would appeal directly to the US president if that happened.

"We have no faith in the Russians, but we will be constructive," he said.

He said US officials saw the energy ceasefire as covering attacks on other civilian infrastructure too and that ports should be covered by the Black Sea agreement.

Nightly Russian drone attacks have been a feature of life in big Ukrainian cities for many months. So have power outages as missiles have hammered the power grid. Kyiv has used drones to hit Russian oil refineries to raise the costs for its much larger foe.

Ukraine, Zelenskiy said, presented US officials during talks with a list of facilities that should be covered by the moratorium on energy strikes.

The deals were announced following two days of talks in Saudi Arabia between US and Ukrainian officials on the one hand and US and Russian officials on the other.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who took part in the talks, wrote on X: "All parties agreed to develop measures for implementing the Presidents’ agreement to ban strikes against energy facilities of Ukraine and Russia."

The White House said in a joint statement with Russia that it would help Moscow restore its access to the world market for agricultural and fertilizer exports.

Zelenskiy said Ukraine had not agreed to put that in its statement with the US side.

"We believe that this is a weakening of position and sanctions," he said.

BLACK SEA WARNING

Kyiv will regard any movement of Russian naval vessels beyond the east of the Black Sea as a violation of the spirit of the agreements, Umerov said.

In such an event, Kyiv will have the right to self-defense, he said, implying that Ukraine could retaliate.

Kyiv, which has used naval drones and missiles to push Russia's Black Sea fleet back towards the east of the Black Sea, would welcome third countries supporting the implementation of the accords, Umerov said.

"The American side really wanted all of this not to fail, so they did not want to go into many details. But in any case we will have to understand answers to each of the details," Zelenskiy said.

Zelenskiy said that Türkiye could potentially be involved in monitoring in the Black Sea while Middle Eastern countries could track the energy truce, though he noted that had not been discussed yet with those countries.

Separately, Zelenskiy said the United States had presented Ukraine with an expanded version of a bilateral minerals deal that went beyond the initial framework agreement that the two sides agreed earlier but never signed.

Zelenskiy had been expected to sign a minerals deal opening up Ukraine's critical minerals to the United States during talks with Trump in the Oval Office last month, but did not when the meeting spiraled into acrimony in front of the world's media.

Zelenskiy said he had not been able to fully review the new proposal in detail yet, but that it did not include greater US involvement in Ukraine's nuclear power sector, something that has been floated by Washington in recent days.