At least 25 people have died in Ukraine in the latest wave of Russian strikes, Ukrainian officials say, as the conflict shows no sign of easing.
One attack on Donetsk Region killed least 11 people and wounded 40, including six children, local officials said yesterday. Homes and infrastructure were hit in other regions, including Kharkiv and Odesa.
Russian attacks have intensified in recent days, as the US paused military aid and intelligence-sharing with Kyiv. It followed last week’s Oval Office clash between President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky.
After the latest Russian strikes, Polish PM Donald Tusk said: “This is what happens when someone appeases barbarians.”
“More bombs, more aggression, more victims,” he added in a social media post.
The deadliest strikes occurred late on Friday in the Donetsk Region town of Dobropillya. At least 11 people were killed when two ballistic missiles hit eight residential buildings and a shopping centre, officials said.
After emergency services arrived, Russia launched another strike “deliberately targeting the rescuers”, Zelensky said in a Telegram post. “Such strikes show that Russia’s goals are unchanged,” he added.
Other attacks in the region killed nine people and wounded 13 on Friday and yesterday, local officials said.
Drones struck a company in Bohodukhiv, Kharkiv Region, killing three people and injuring seven earlier yesterday, regional head Oleh Synyehubov reported.
Another drone attack on Friday hit civilian and energy infrastructure in Odesa, the regional head said. “This is the seventh attack on the region’s energy system in three weeks,” the DTEK energy company said.
Meanwhile, Ukraine continued to target Russia, whose defence ministry said its forces had intercepted 31 Ukrainian drones overnight.
A tank at Russia’s Kirishi oil refinery, one of the country’s largest, was damaged by falling debris during a major Ukrainian drone attack, the governor of the northwestern Leningrad region said yesterday.
“Air defences shot down one drone on approach, the other was destroyed over the territory of the enterprise,” Alexander Drozdenko, governor of the Leningrad region, said on Telegram.
Additionally, Russian troops have launched a large-scale offensive to retake swaths of the western Kursk region from Ukrainian forces, war bloggers and a senior Russian commander said. Ukrainian troops stormed into Russia’s Kursk region last summer, taking chunks of territory in an unexpected lightning attack more than two years after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine.
Trump yesterday said he was finding it “more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine” than Russia in attempts to broker peace between the two nations.
The US is “doing very well with Russia”, and “it may be easier dealing with” Moscow than Kyiv, he told reporters.
Hours earlier, Trump had said he was “strongly considering” large-scale sanctions and tariffs on Russia until a ceasefire with Ukraine was reached.
In addition to halting military and intelligence help, the US suspended Ukraine’s access to some satellite imagery, space technology company Maxar said on Friday.
The move came exactly a week after the extraordinary exchange at the White House, in which Trump berated Zelensky for being “disrespectful” to the US.
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