CNN
By Christian Edwards, Svitlana Vlasova, Laura Sharman, Victoria Butenko, CNN
(CNN) — A day before his scheduled meeting with US President Donald Trump in Florida, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “man of war” after Moscow carried out the year’s longest sustained attack on Kyiv and the surrounding region.
Standing beside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Saturday, Zelensky told reporters that the latest Russian attacks “really showed Putin doesn’t want peace.”
“We want peace,” Zelensky said. “And he’s a man of war.”
The aerial attack on the city of Kyiv and the surrounding region lasted nearly 10 hours, killing at least two people and injuring 44 more, including two children, according to local authorities.
More than 40% of residential buildings in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, also have no heating as a result, amid freezing temperatures, Oleksiy Kuleba, a senior government minister, said on social media.
Local residents were kept on edge into Saturday, with air raid sirens blaring on and off intermittently during the day.
Speaking on board a plane bound for the United States Saturday, Zelensky said he would be looking for a signal during talks with Trump that Ukraine would receive legally binding security guarantees as part of any peace deal.
He also repeated calls for the bolstering of Ukraine’s air defenses, saying the country needed more missiles amid Russia’s relentless attacks. “The support of Europeans is important to us today. We do not have enough additional air defence systems,” he said.
Ahead of his meeting with Trump, Zelensky stopped in Canada Saturday for talks with Carney, where the prime minister announced a further 2.5 billion Canadian dollars ($1.83 billion) in economic assistance for Ukraine.
According to a Canadian government source with knowledge of the new aid package, it will also enable the International Monetary Fund to lend Ukraine an additional $8.4 billion.
Trump said in an interview with Politico that he expects the meeting with Zelensky to “go good,” but cautioned that the Ukrainian president “doesn’t have anything until I approve it.” He added that he also expects to speak with Putin “soon, as much as I want.”
As for Putin, Russian state media service TASS cited him as saying Saturday that, “if Kyiv is not willing to resolve the matter peacefully, Russia will accomplish all the aims of the special military operation by military means,” using a euphemism for the war in Ukraine.
In total, Russia launched 519 drones and 40 missiles at Ukraine overnight, according to Ukraine’s air force. Zelensky said Saturday morning that, while Russian officials are engaging in talks to end fighting, the ongoing violence speaks for itself.
The most recent strikes primarily targeted energy and civilian infrastructure in the capital city, Zelensky said.
“In some districts of the capital and the region, electricity and heating are currently unavailable,” he said. “Firefighting efforts a