kyiv, Ukraine (AP) — Russia attacked Ukraine's capital with ballistic missiles and drones on Saturday, killing at least one person and wounding 27 others, authorities said, a day before talks between the presidents of Ukraine and the United States.

Explosions were heard across kyiv as the attack began in the early morning hours and continued for hours.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepared to meet with US President Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday to continue talks on ending the war. Zelenskyy told reporters that he and Trump plan to discuss several issues, including security guarantees and territorial issues in the Donetsk and Zaporizhia regions.

"This attack is Russia's response to our peace efforts. It really shows that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin does not want peace," Zelenskyy said after stopping in Canada to meet with Prime Minister Mark Carney in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Carney announced $1.8 billion in economic assistance to Ukraine that helps unlock financing from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for reconstruction and development.

“The barbarity we saw overnight, the attack on kyiv, shows how important it is that we support Ukraine during this difficult time,” Carney said.

Attacks on residential buildings

The Russian Defense Ministry said it carried out a “massive attack” overnight, using “long-range precision weapons from land, air and sea, including Kinzhal hypersonic aeroballistic missiles” and drones. It stated that it attacked energy infrastructure facilities used by Ukrainian forces and companies in the military-industrial complex.

But several residential buildings were also hit.

The ministry added that the offensive was in response to Ukraine's attacks against "civilian objects" in Russia.

Hours earlier on Saturday, the ministry said that its anti-aircraft batteries shot down seven Ukrainian drones overnight over the Russian regions of Krasnodar and Adygeya. On Saturday afternoon, the ministry reported that 147 more drones were shot down over several Russian regions.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said air defenses intercepted more than 20 drones flying toward the Russian capital on Saturday. No damage or casualties were reported. It was not immediately clear whether those were included in the Defense Ministry's count.

Russia calls for territorial gains

In what could be seen as an attempt to increase pressure on Ukraine ahead of talks between Zelenskyy and Trump, the Kremlin on Saturday night released a video of Putin in military uniform receiving briefings from senior military officials at an unnamed command post.

Russia's chief of the General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, briefed Putin. that Russian troops have taken full control of Myrnograd in the Donetsk region - Russia uses the city's former Soviet name, Dimitrov -, the city of Gulyaipolé in the Zaporizhzhia region, and some other settlements.

Putin declared that “if the kyiv authorities are not willing to resolve the matter peacefully, we will achieve all the objectives we have in the special military operation by military means.”

The General Staff of Ukraine responded by saying that the situation in Gulyaipolé is “difficult, but the defensive operation in the city continues.” In Myrnograd, the situation remains “complicated.”

“The senior political commanders of the aggressor state have once again resorted to spreading false claims about the important ‘successes’ of the Russian army on the battlefield,” the General Staff asserted in an online statement.

Poland on alert

Poland deployed fighter jets and closed the airports in Lublin and Rzeszow, near the border with Ukraine, for several hours during the Russian attacks, the command of the country's armed forces said on the social network It is currently unknown what caused the alert in Poland, given that the Russian attacks were focused on kyiv, which is far from the border.

Russia launched 519 drones and 40 missiles towards Ukraine, the Ukrainian air force reported. The main target was energy and civil infrastructure in kyiv, Zelenskyy noted. The attacks left some districts in the region without light or heat, he added.

Man dies in flames

More than 10 residential buildings were damaged by the attacks, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said in a social media post.

Olena Karpenko, 52, listened to a man burn to death. "I can still hear their screams. I can't believe it," she said through tears.

Karpenko said they heard a sudden explosion at a nearby thermal power plant, followed by a stronger explosion that shook the windows of their home. Then came the impact on his building.

Two children were among those injured in the attack, which affected seven points in kyiv, reported the head of the city's Military Administration, Tymur Tkachenko, on social networks.

A body was found under the rubble of a building, Klymenko announced. It was not immediately clear if the person found under the rubble was the man who burned to death.

A fire broke out in an 18-story residential building in the city's Dnipro district, and emergency crews rushed to the scene to contain the flames. A 24-story residential building in the Darnytsia district was also hit, Tkachenko reported, and more fires broke out in the Obolon and Holosiiv districts.

In the broader kyiv region, the attacks hit industrial and residential buildings, according to the Ukrainian Emergency Service. In the Vyshgorod area, emergency crews rescued one person from the rubble of a destroyed house.

Ukraine's largest private energy company, DTEK, said on “as few unresolved issues as possible” in talks with Trump, respecting Ukraine's red lines.

Speaking by audio note in a WhatsApp chat with journalists, Zelenskyy said he will prioritize discussing security guarantees for Ukraine. He has said that in the draft peace plan, the United States has committed to providing guarantees that reflect Article 5 of the NATO alliance, meaning that an attack on Ukraine would trigger a collective military response from the United States and its allies.

But key details must be worked out in a bilateral agreement.

Territorial concessions are the most sensitive issue the two leaders will discuss, including the Donetsk region and the Zaporiya nuclear power plant. Zelenskyy reiterated that Ukraine will never recognize any territory as Russian “under any circumstances.”

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Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, and Rob Gillies in Toronto, contributed to this report.

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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.