Russia hits Kyiv's power links to two nuclear plants days before Abu Dhabi talks: 4 of 36 missiles intercepted

Update. Russia struck energy infrastructure around Kyiv overnight into Saturday with ballistic missiles and drones, straining electricity, water and heating as temperatures head toward zero, according to CNBC, which carried a Reuters report, and BBC News. Both cite Ukrainian officials. We reported the date of the coming talks earlier this week in our Abu Dhabi story; this is what has changed since.

What Ukraine says was hit

• Power links to two nuclear plants. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, per BBC, that substations connecting the Rivne and Khmelnytsky nuclear power plants to Kyiv and central Ukraine were struck. Ukraine's energy ministry told Reuters the damage outside Kyiv was serious. The reports describe damage to transmission, not to the plants themselves.
• Interception rate. Zelenskyy said only four of the 36 ballistic-type missiles Russia launched were intercepted, and that some were North Korean-made. That is about 11%, on his figures. BBC puts the attack at more than 30 ballistic missiles and over 170 drones across 12 regions. We cannot verify these counts independently.
• Bridge. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said several missiles hit the Northern Bridge across the Dnipro River. Reuters notes Moscow has recently widened its campaign to Kyiv's bridges, snarling traffic in a city of more than 3 million.
• Other regions. Zelenskyy said substations were also damaged in the Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Rivne, Kharkiv and Dnipro regions. The energy minister, Denys Shmyhal, said there were power cuts in five regions.
• Recovery so far. Klitschko said later that Kyiv's water supply was back to normal and about 60% of the city's apartment buildings were connected to heating, per BBC.

Casualties: the reports differ

Reuters, via CNBC, says at least two people were killed and about a dozen wounded across Ukraine. BBC says nine were reported hurt, including one child, and does not report deaths. We are giving both because the tolls were still being updated. Russia's defense ministry said it struck what it called targets in Ukraine's military-industrial sector and energy and transport infrastructure in and around Kyiv. Russian authorities said Ukrainian drone and missile attacks on several Russian regions the same day caused minor damage and no casualties. Each side's account is its own claim.

The talks it lands on

Ukrainian and Russian officials are due in Abu Dhabi from Tuesday to Wednesday for U.S.-brokered three-way talks, the first of that format since February, according to Reuters. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Interfax the Russian delegation, led by aide Vladimir Medinsky, will include Deputy Foreign Ministers Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin, General Staff officer Yuri Zhigarlovsky and military intelligence chief Igor Kostyukov. Zelenskyy said Moscow was preparing for the talks by hitting critical infrastructure. This week, BBC reports, glide bombs hit an aid center near Zaporizhzhia and the death toll has risen to 55 (we first reported 33 dead in Tuesday's story), and a six-day truce around Oleshky ended with evacuations that both sides credited to President Trump.

What it means for markets and business

The figures below are Friday's closes, before these strikes, and markets are shut until Sunday evening, so none of this is priced yet.

Yahoo Finance, read Saturday; percentages are our arithmetic. Yahoo's continuous futures series can differ from the active December contract quoted by other feeds.

Oil. Strikes on Ukrainian power grids do not directly touch crude supply, and the Iran front is driving the price this week, so we would not expect a large reaction from this story alone. Russian export infrastructure, not Ukraine's grid, is what moves oil; we saw no report of that being hit today. Shipping and insurance. Nothing in the reports changes Black Sea or Baltic routes. Airlines and airspace. The reports say nothing about flight routes or airspace, so we have no change to report. Defense stocks. ITA is still 18.3% below its Aug. 14 high even after Friday's bounce, and a failed or stalled Abu Dhabi round is the kind of headline traders in the sector watch. U.S. consumers. The direct link is thin this weekend; the larger exposure to Europe-related energy and defense spending runs through the talks' outcome, not this night's damage.

Watch next: official Ukrainian outage figures through the weekend, whether Kyiv confirms its delegation for Tuesday, and whether Russia's strikes continue ahead of the talks. More: War Room, markets.

Sources: CNBC (Reuters report), BBC News, Yahoo Finance. Casualty and interception figures are attributed to the officials who gave them and are not independently verified. This is market information, not investment advice.