Russian missile strike on Odesa kills 8 as US hosts a Kremlin envoy for talks on peace plan
A rescue worker walks in front of a residential house damaged after a Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Kateryna Klochko)2025-12-20T08:03:20Z
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian missile strike on port infrastructure in Odesa in southern Ukraine killed eight people and wounded 27, Ukraine’s emergency service said Saturday, as a data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-peace-us-plan-miami-dc775dc61aa1e455d32d2213f1ce0a72">a Kremlin envoy was set to travel to Florida for talks on a data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-berlin-talks-zelenskyy-5b99faff949ee1ba6212433be2d54b88">U.S.-proposed plan to end the nearly four-year war,
The discussions are part of the Trump administration’s monthslong push for peace that also included meetings with Ukrainian and European officials in Berlin earlier this week. Ukraine’s chief negotiator said late Friday that his delegation had completed separate meetings in the U.S. with American and European partners.
Meanwhile, European Union leaders data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/article/europe-summit-ukraine-funds-assets-russia-loan-abc7b025112dba1f074755e454c29681">agreed on Friday to provide a massive interest-free loan to Ukraine to meet its military and economic needs for the next two years.
Some of those wounded in Odesa were on a bus at the center of the strike late Friday, the emergency service said in a Telegram post. Trucks caught fire in the parking lot and cars were also damaged.
The port was struck with ballistic missiles, said Oleh Kiper, the head of the Odesa region.
Moscow did not immediately acknowledge reports of the attack. The Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday that over the previous day, it had struck unspecified “transport and storage infrastructure used by the Ukrainian armed forces,” along with energy facilities and those supplying Kyiv’s war effort.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian drones hit a Russian oil rig, the military patrol ship Okhotnik and other facilities, Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement Saturday. It said the ship was patrolling in the Caspian Sea near an oil and gas production platform. The extent of the damage was still being clarified, it said.
The drilling platform at the Filanovsky oil and gas field as also hit. The facility is operated by Russian oil giant Lukoil. Ukrainian drones also struck a radar system in the Krasnosilske area of Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
There was no immediate comment from the Russian government or Lukoil. The company is one of two Russian oil majors — alongside state-owned Gazprom — data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-sanctions-oil-trump-war-ukraine-4fa911a41494f56c29cb76a7f70f73d0">targeted by recent U.S. sanctions that aim to deprive Moscow of oil export revenue that helps it sustain the war.
Kyiv has used similar arguments to justify months of data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-oil-refineries-zelenskyy-fa04014c6c1bdf0e15123d898c491b03">long-range strikes on Russian oil infrastructure, which it says both funds and directly fuels the Kremlin’s all-out invasion, soon to enter its fifth year.
Trump’s peace push set to continue Saturday
U.S. President Donald Trump has unleashed an extensive data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-berlin-talks-zelenskyy-5b99faff949ee1ba6212433be2d54b88">diplomatic push to end the war, but his efforts have run into sharply data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-putin-zelenskyy-trump-253ff2eb24b2dbd1b1b9d8a2ab20e913">conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently signaled data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-putin-press-conference-ukraine-39fd3f2670227545a6f9e684038ed59d">he is digging in on his maximalist demands on Ukraine, as Moscow’s troops inch forward on the battlefield despite huge losses.
On Friday, Putin data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-putin-press-conference-ukraine-39fd3f2670227545a6f9e684038ed59d">voiced confidence that the Kremlin would achieve its goals militarily if Kyiv doesn’t agree to Russia’s conditions in peace talks.
EU leaders agreed to provide 90 billion euros ($106 billion) to Ukraine to meet its military and economic needs for the next two years, although they failed to bridge differences with Belgium that would have allowed them to data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/article/europe-russian-frozen-assets-ukraine-loan-summit-92380313985bc145ac72264a7d5106eb">use frozen Russian assets to raise the funds. Instead, they were borrowed on capital markets.
After almost four years of war, the International Monetary Fund estimates that Ukraine will need 137 billion euros ($161 billion) in 2026 and 2027. The government in Kyiv is on the verge of bankruptcy, and desperately needs the money by spring.
Meanwhile, data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/article/kirill-dmitriev-russia-ukraine-war-peace-plan-346fbe114fd50e6a5043631e364cfe55">Kirill Dmitriev, who heads Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, is set to meet with Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in Miami on Saturday, data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-peace-us-plan-miami-dc775dc61aa1e455d32d2213f1ce0a72">according to a U.S. official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to preview a meeting that hasn’t yet been publicly announced.
The official said Witkoff and Kushner will sit down with Dmitriev, after meetings with Ukrainian and European officials in Berlin for talks on data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-berlin-talks-zelenskyy-5b99faff949ee1ba6212433be2d54b88">U.S. security guarantees for Kyiv, data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-berlin-talks-zelenskyy-05c363add7a4a3583f3beada7b1fb775">territorial concessions and other aspects of the American-authored plan.
Ukraine’s chief negotiator Rustem Umerov said late Friday that a Ukrainian delegation had met with American and European partners in the U.S. He gave few details, but said they agreed to continue “joint work in the near future.”
Asked about the meeting in Miami, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that Moscow was preparing for contacts with the U.S. to learn about the results of the meetings in Berlin, but he didn’t give details.
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Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington and Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at data-gtm-enhancement-style="LinkEnhancementA" href="https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine">https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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Russian missile strike on Odesa kills 8 as US hosts a Kremlin envoy for talks on peace plan
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October 29, 2014, 08:45:24 AM