Russian drone attack injures 3 Ukrainian children as Putin expresses confidence in victory

A Russian attack on the Odesa region wounded six people, including three children, according to officials in Ukraine.

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian drones blasted apartment buildings and the power grid in the southern Ukraine city of Odesa in an overnight attack that injured six people, including a toddler and two other children, officials said Wednesday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed confidence in his country’s eventual victory in the nearly four-year war against its neighbor.

Four apartment buildings were damaged in the Odesa bombardment, according to regional military administration head Oleh Kiper. The DTEK power provider said two of its energy facilities had significant damage. The company said 10 substations that distribute electricity in the region have been damaged in December.

Russia has escalated attacks on urban areas of Ukraine. As its invasion approaches a four-year milestone in February, it has also intensified targeting of energy infrastructure, seeking to deny Ukrainians heat and running water in the bitter winter months.

Between January and November, more than 2,300 Ukrainian civilians were killed and more than 11,000 were injured, the United Nations said earlier in December. That was 26 per cent higher than in the same period in 2024 and 70 per cent higher than in 2023, it said.

Renewed diplomatic push to stop the fighting

Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said he, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner had a “productive call” with the national security advisers of Britain, France, Germany and Ukraine “to discuss advancing the next steps in the European peace process.”

“We focused on how to move the discussions forward in a practical way on behalf of (Trump’s) peace process, including strengthening security guarantees and developing effective deconfliction mechanisms to help end the war and ensure it does not restart,” Witkoff said in a post on X.

He added that a main element of the conversation was the reconstruction of Ukraine and how to ensure its prosperity in the future.

Wednesday’s call comes after U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday and announced that a settlement is “closer than ever before.” European and Ukrainian officials plan to meet Saturday, lead Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov reaffirmed, adding that U.S. representatives were expected to join remotely.

Zelenskyy also is due to hold talks next week with European leaders supporting his efforts to secure acceptable terms.

Putin is convinced of victory

Despite progress in peace negotiations, which he didn’t mention, Putin reaffirmed his belief in Russia’s eventual success in its invasion during his traditional New Year’s address.

He gave special praise to Russian troops deployed in Ukraine, describing them as heroes “fighting for your native land, truth and justice.”

“We believe in you and our victory,” Putin said, as cited by Russian state news agency Tass.

The Russian Defense Ministry said 86 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight over Russian regions, the Black Sea and the illegally annexed Crimea peninsula.

Russia claims Putin’s residence was attacked

Russia’s Defense Ministry released a video of a downed drone that it said was one of 91 Ukrainian drones involved in an alleged attack this week on a Putin residence in northwestern Russia, a claim Kyiv has denied as a “lie.”

The nighttime video showed a man in camouflage, a helmet and a Kevlar vest standing near a damaged drone lying in snow. The man, his face covered, talks about the drone. Neither the man nor the Defense Ministry provided any location or date.

The video and claims could not be independently verified.

Kyiv has denied the allegations of an attack on Putin’s lakeside country residence and called them a ruse to derail progress in peace negotiations.

Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation said Wednesday the images could not be considered evidence of the attack as the origin of the damaged drone, as well as the time and location of the video itself, remained unknown.

“It took Russia more than two days to fabricate this `evidence’. The photographs of metal fragments laid out on the snow, published by the Russian Defense Ministry, do not prove anything in themselves,” the center said in a statement on its website.

“There is no video of air defense operations in the area of ​​the residence, no recorded drone crashes in the claimed locations and no consistency even in its own figures, which have changed repeatedly.”

Maj. Gen. Alexander Romanenkov of the Russian air force claimed that the drones took off from Ukraine’s Sumy and Chernihiv regions. At a briefing where no questions were allowed, he presented a map showing the drone flight routes before they allegedly were downed by Russian air defenses over the Bryansk, Tver, Smolensk and Novgorod regions.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, called the Russian allegations “a deliberate distraction” from peace talks.

Ukraine weapons fund receives billions of dollars

Zelenskyy said Romania and Croatia are the latest countries to join a fund that buys weapons for Ukraine from the United States.

The financial arrangement, known as the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, or PURL, pools contributions from NATO members, except the United States, to purchase U.S. weapons, munitions and equipment.

Since it was established in August, 24 countries are now contributing to the fund, according to Zelenskyy. The fund has received $4.3 billion, with almost $1.5 billion coming in December, he said on social media.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Security Service carried out a drone strike on a major Russian fuel storage facility in the northwestern Yaroslavl region early Tuesday, according to a Ukrainian security official who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Long-range drones struck the Temp oil depot in the city of Rybinsk, part of Russia’s state fuel reserve system, the official told The Associated Press. Rybinsk is about 800 kilometers (500 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

Illia Novikov, The Associated Press

Katie Marie Davies in Leicester, England, contributed to this story.