Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said yesterday that Russia launched more than 200 drones in an overnight attack, the largest of the war, as he condemned Russia’s ‘aerial terror’ and called for unity among Ukraine’s allies.
The drone attack came on a day when a top Russian diplomat said Russian and US teams plan to meet this week to discuss improving relations.
President Vladimir Putin appointed Kirill Dmitriev, the chief of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, as a special envoy on international economic and investment co-operation.
A presidential decree announcing the appointment of Dmitriev, considered the most US-savvy member of Russia’s elite, comes after the highest-level US-Russia talks since Russia sent its forces into Ukraine in 2022.
“Every day, our people stand against aerial terror,” Zelenskiy wrote on X.
“On the eve of the third anniversary of the full-scale war, Russia launched 267 attack drones against Ukraine – the largest attack since Iranian drones began striking Ukrainian cities and villages.”
Ukraine’s air force said in a statement that 138 of the drones were downed and another 119 disappeared from radars after being jammed by electronic warfare, adding that Russia also launched three ballistic missiles. Damage was reported in five regions of Ukraine.
Moscow has launched near-nightly massed drone attacks at Ukraine for months, seeking to exhaust air defences.
Zelenskiy said that in total, nearly 1,150 attack drones, more than 1,400 guided aerial bombs and 35 missiles of various types, were launched by Russia at Ukraine in the past week.
The president thanked those operating Ukraine’s air defences, and called on the country’s foreign allies to stand united to secure a ‘just and lasting peace’.
“This is achievable through the unity of all partners – we need the strength of all of Europe, the strength of America, the strength of everyone who seeks lasting peace.”
Kyiv and its European allies have been unnerved by new US President Donald Trump verbally attacking Zelenskiy last week, as well as by a meeting between US and Russian delegations in Riyadh to which Ukraine was not invited.
Russian and US teams plan to meet this week to discuss improving relations after the war in Ukraine had pushed ties to the worst level since the depths of the Cold War, a senior Russian diplomat said.
With Russian forces having advanced last year at the fastest rate in Ukraine since the start of the 2022 invasion, Trump has said he wants to deliver a peace deal to end the war which he says has killed vast numbers of people.
Trump and Putin spoke on February 12 about improving relations and ending the war, and US and Russian officials met in Riyadh on February 18 to that end.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, Moscow’s point man for relations with the US, said that a meeting at the level of departmental heads would take place at the end of the week.
“We are open to contacts with the American side, in particular, on irritants in bilateral relations,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying by state news agency Tass.
“We are waiting for real progress when the meeting scheduled for the end of the coming week takes place.”
Trump said on February 12 that it was not practical for Ukraine to get Nato alliance membership and that he had seen support for US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s statement that Ukraine will not realistically return to its 2014 borders.
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