Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged Ukraine’s allies to speed up imposing new sanctions on Russia after another huge wave of strikes on his country’s capital killed two people, including a police officer, and left 23 wounded.
“Sanctions must be imposed faster, and pressure on Russia must be strong enough that they truly feel the consequences of their terror,” the Ukrainian president said on social media. He accused Moscow of “an obvious escalation”, with “constant strikes” and hundreds of Shahed drones launched every night.
Ukraine’s air defence force said Moscow had sent 400 drones and 18 missiles across the country in the early hours. Kyiv was the main target. Other regions including Chernihiv, Sumy and Kharkiv in the north and north-east also came under attack.
For several hours, loud booms and explosions were heard across the Ukrainian capital. Air defence units tried to shoot down a wave of kamikaze drones, nicknamed “mopeds” because of their noisy mechanical buzzing. Residents sheltered in the metro, in underground passages and in basements and bathrooms.
The capital woke up, exhausted and groggy, on Thursday to a pall of smoke in the sky. “Everything was covered with smoke when I walked my dog in the morning,” one local person said.
The latest assault came a day after Moscow pummelled Ukraine with its largest missile and drone attack in more than three years of full-scale war, killing at least one civilian, and also followed a big raid on Kyiv last week.
Marco Rubio said there were no signs that the Kremlin was willing to compromise. Speaking on the sidelines of an Asean foreign ministers’ meeting, after talks with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in Kuala Lumpur, Rubio said Donald Trump was disappointed with Moscow’s hardline stance.
The US secretary of state said: “He’s frustrated that there’s not been more flexibility on the Russian side to bring about an end to this conflict. We hope that can change.”
Asked about the US’s response to the latest strike on Kyiv, he said sanctions on Russia were a real option. He said the Trump administration had been engaging with the Senate and Congress over what a sanctions bill drafted by the Republican senator Lindsey Graham would look like.
Washington also joined talks for the first time on Thursday about a European-led peacekeeping force to aid Ukraine once the war ends, a move welcomed by Zelenskyy. At a summit in London with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, described the so-called coalition of the willing as “ready to go” once a ceasefire is agreed.
One of the victims of Russia’s bombardment was named as a 22-year-old Kyiv police officer, Mariia Dziumaha, who served in the police department of the Kyiv metro. A drone hit the central apartment building where she lived, setting it on fire, residents said.
The Ukrainian journalist Kristina Berdynskykh wrote on social media: “During nights like these, you think how unbearable it is. But in the early morning, you buy a coffee in a cafe and wonder if it was all a dream.”
Dozens of residents of the capital took shelter in a central metro station during the attack, sleeping on mats, calming pets or waiting out the attack on camping furniture.
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said falling debris sparked fires at buildings in the districts of Solomyansky and Shevchenkivsky. Falling drone debris also caused fires at garages and a petrol station in another capital district, Darnytsky.
Russia’s record barrage points to a trend of escalating attacks that have piled pressure on Ukraine’s thinly stretched air defence capabilities and exhausted the civilian population.
Zelenskyy was in Rome on Thursday for an international aid conference dedicated to Ukraine’s recovery. He briefed Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, on the latest attacks and discussed air defence and drone production with Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni.
He also held talks with Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Gen Keith Kellogg, after the US president’s decision on Tuesday to restart deliveries of weapons to Ukraine, which had been frozen for a week. Zelenskyy said on Thursday evening that Kyiv had a timetable and details of upcoming weapons supplies from the US.
Trump, who returned to power this year promising a swift end to the war that began in 2022, had taken a more conciliatory tone towards Moscow in a departure from his predecessor Joe Biden’s staunch support for Kyiv.
After resuming weapons shipments, Trump aimed unusually direct criticism at Putin, saying the Kremlin leader’s statements on moving towards peace were “meaningless”.
Trump also said he was considering supporting the bipartisan bill that would impose steep sanctions on Russia, including 500% tariffs on countries that bought Russian oil, gas, uranium and other exports.
When asked on Wednesday about Trump’s criticism of Putin, the Kremlin said Moscow was “calm” regarding the criticism and that it would continue to try to fix a “broken” US-Russia relationship.
With Reuters and Agence France-Presse
