Kyiv hit by barrage of drone strikes as Putin rejects Trump’s truce bid
A pall of acrid smoke hung over Kyiv on Friday morning following a night of intensive Russian strikes that hit almost every district of the capital, according to Ukrainian authorities.
The hours of darkness were once again punctuated by the staccato of air defence guns, buzz of drones and large explosions. Ukraine said Russia had fired a record 550 drones and 11 missiles during a long night of bombardment.
The strikes came hours after a phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, after which the US president said he was "disappointed" that Putin was not ready to end Russia's war against Ukraine.
A woman was killed in Russia following Ukrainian drone attacks, officials said.
The acting governor of the southern Rostov region said she had been killed in a strike on a village not far from the Ukrainian border.
Russia's overnight air strikes broke another record, Ukraine's air force said, with 72 of the 550 drones penetrating air defences – up from a previous record of 537 launched last Saturday night.
Air raid alerts sounded for more than eight hours as several waves of attacks struck Kyiv, the "main target of the strikes", the air force said on the messaging app Telegram.
Ukraine's foreign minister condemned "one of the worst" nights in the capital and said "Moscow must be slapped with the toughest sanctions without delay".
Friday's attacks were the latest in a string of major Russian air strikes on Ukraine that have intensified in recent weeks as ceasefire talks have largely stalled.
War in Ukraine has been raging for more than three years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Following his conversation with Putin on Thursday, Trump said that "no progress" to end the fighting had been made.
"I'm very disappointed with the conversation I had today with President Putin, because I don't think he's there, and I'm very disappointed," Trump said.
"I'm just saying I don't think he's looking to stop, and that's too bad."
The Kremlin reiterated that it would continue to seek to remove "the root causes of the war in Ukraine". Putin has sought to return Ukraine to Russia's sphere of influence and said last week that "the whole of Ukraine is ours".
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he hoped to speak to Trump on Thursday about the supply of US weapons after a decision in Washington to halt some shipments of critical weapons to Ukraine.
Kyiv has warned that the move would impede its ability to defend Ukraine against escalating airstrikes and Russian advances on the frontlines.
Speaking to reporters, Trump said "we're giving weapons" and "we haven't" completely paused the flow of weapons. He blamed former President Joe Biden for "emptying out our whole country giving them weapons, and we have to make sure that we have enough for ourselves".
