At least eight people have died overnight as Russian drone and missile strikes continued to pound Ukraine’s towns and cities, local officials said.
Meanwhile, the United States wants Ukraine to hold elections, potentially by the end of the year, especially if Kyiv can agree a truce with Russia in the coming months, President Donald Trump’s top Ukraine official has said.
Amid Moscow’s troops continuing grinding advance through the country’s east, a Russian missile strike on an apartment block in the Ukrainian city of Poltava killed at least seven people and injured 14 more, including three children, Ukraine’s emergency services reported.
Some 22 people were rescued from the five-storey building, which partially collapsed following the attack, said the Poltava region’s acting governor, Volodymyr Kohut. Rescue teams remain at the site.
Elsewhere, a 60-year-old woman was killed by falling debris from a downed drone in the Kharkiv region, local governor Oleh Syniehubov wrote on social media.
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The bombardment comes as Russian forces continue their months-long campaign to capture the key Donetsk strongholds of Pokrovsk and nearby Chasiv Yar, fighting their way across farm fields and woodland and engulfing small rural settlements.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on social media on Saturday: “Last night, Russia launched an attack on our cities using various types of weapons: missiles, attack drones, and aerial bombs.
“Every such act of terror proves that we need greater support in defending against Russian terror.
“Every air defence system, every interceptor missile, means a life saved.”
The full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine, which began nearly three years ago and shows no signs of ending, has led to the deaths of more than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations.
Many have been evacuated from areas along the roughly 1,000km front line, where Ukrainian defences are straining to hold the bigger Russian army at bay.
Civilians have also endured hardship caused by Russian attacks on the power grid that have denied them heating and running water.
Ukrainian strikes also hit Russia, with air defences intercepting nine drones across the country’s Bryansk, Belgorod and Saratov regions, Russia’s Defence Ministry said.
Meanwhile, Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, said in an interview that Ukrainian presidential and parliamentary elections, suspended during the war with Russia, “need to be done”.
“Most democratic nations have elections in their time of war. I think it is important they do so,” Mr Kellogg said. “I think it is good for democracy. That’s the beauty of a solid democracy, you have more than one person potentially running.”
Mr Trump and Mr Kellogg have said they are working on a plan to broker a deal in the first several months of the new US administration to end the all-out war in Ukraine that erupted with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
They have offered few details about their strategy for ending the deadliest conflict in Europe since the second War Two, nor when they might unveil such a plan.
The Trump plan is still evolving and no policy decisions have been made, but Mr Kellogg and other White House officials have in recent days discussed pushing Ukraine to agree to elections as part of an initial truce with Russia, two people with knowledge of those conversations and a former US official briefed about the election proposal said.
Trump officials are also debating whether to push for an initial ceasefire before trying to broker a more permanent deal, the two people familiar with the Trump administration discussions said. If presidential elections were to take place in Ukraine, the winner could be responsible for negotiating a longer-term pact with Moscow, the people said.
The sources declined to be named in order to discuss sensitive policy and security issues.
It is unclear how such a Trump proposal would be greeted in Kyiv. Mr Zelenskiy has said Ukraine could hold elections this year if the fighting ends and strong security guarantees are in place to deter Russia from renewing hostilities.
A senior adviser to Kyiv and a Ukrainian government source said the Trump administration has not yet formally requested Ukraine hold presidential elections by the end of the year.
Mr Zelenskiy’s five-year term was supposed to end in 2024, but presidential and parliamentary polls cannot be held under martial law, which Ukraine imposed in February 2022.
Washington raised the issue of elections with senior officials in Mr Zelenskiy’s office in 2023 and 2024 during the Biden administration, two former senior US officials said.
State Department and White House officials told their Ukrainian counterparts that elections were critical to uphold international and democratic norms, the officials said.
Officials in Kyiv have pushed back on elections in conversations with Washington in recent months, telling Biden officials that hosting polls at such a volatile moment in Ukraine’s history would divide Ukrainian leaders and potentially invite Russian campaigns seeking to influence the outcome, the two former US officials said.
Asked about what the former Western official and two other people familiar with the matter said, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We do not have that information.”
Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov was cited by the Interfax news agency on January 27th as saying that direct contacts between Moscow and the Trump administration were not yet under way. The Russian Foreign Ministry says it is still waiting for the US to approve its new pick as Moscow’s ambassador in Washington, a post currently unoccupied.
Putin has said publicly he does not think Mr Zelenskiy is a legitimate leader in the absence of a renewed electoral mandate, and that the Ukrainian president does not have the legal right to sign binding documents related to a potential peace deal.
According to the Russian leader, Mr Zelenskiy could take part in negotiations in the meantime, but must first revoke a 2022 decree he signed banning talks with Russia for as long as Mr Putin is in charge.
The Ukrainian government source said Mr Putin was using the election issue as a false excuse to disrupt future negotiations.
“[He] is setting a trap, claiming that if Ukraine doesn’t hold elections, he can later ignore any agreements,” the source said.
Ukrainian legislation explicitly prohibits presidential and parliamentary elections from being held under martial law.
The former Western official raised concerns about the US push for elections, saying lifting martial law could allow mobilised soldiers to leave the military, trigger an exodus of hard currency, and prompt large numbers of draft-age men to “run for the border”.
It could also ignite political instability, the source said, because it would make Mr Zelenskiy a lame duck, diluting his power and influence and fuelling jockeying by potential challengers. – Agencies
