KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia targeted eight regions of Ukraine in its latest nighttime drone and missile barrage, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday, with local authorities reporting that the strikes wounded more than two dozen civilians, including three children.
Russian forces fired 524 attack drones and 22 ballistic and cruise missiles, Zelenskyy said. The city of Dnipro and the surrounding central region of Ukraine bore the brunt of the attack, officials said.
The barrage continued a recent spiral of long-range strikes that have grown in scale following a May 9-11 ceasefire that U.S. President Donald Trump said he asked Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin to observe but which had little impact. There is no sign a peace deal is taking shape despite U.S. diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s invasion.
Russia hammered Ukraine over several days last week, flattening a Kyiv apartment building where 24 people died.
One of Ukraine’s largest drone strikes on Russia killed at least four people, including three near Moscow, and wounded a dozen others, authorities said Sunday.
In more than four years of war, Ukraine has built up its own long-range capabilities. It has been hitting oil facilities that represent a vital part of the Russian economy, as well as other targets deep inside Russia, making the Russian public take notice. That has increased the pressure on Putin, whose army is struggling to make progress on the battlefield and who claimed earlier this month, without providing evidence, that the war is approaching its end.
On Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that more than 1,000 Ukrainian drones had been shot down or jammed in the previous 24 hours, with around 80 on their way to Moscow.
In another significant enhancement of Ukraine’s long-range arsenal, Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said Monday that the country has developed its first glide bomb — a powerful weapon that has regularly been deployed to devastating effect by Russia.
The Ukrainian version carries a 250-kilogram (550-pound) warhead and is designed to strike fortifications, command posts and other targets dozens of kilometers (miles) behind the front line, he said. Ukrainian pilots are currently training with the weapon under combat conditions.