A daytime Russian drone barrage mainly targeting western Ukraine killed at least six people and wounded dozens, the Ukrainian president said on Wednesday, in what appeared to be a pivot in Moscow’s aerial bombardment strategy.
Russia has been pounding Ukrainian cities for more than four years but usually launches large-scale drone and missile attacks at night.
“Since midnight, at least 800 Russian drones have already been launched,” Zelensky said on social media, adding that “six people have been killed” and dozens were injured, including children.
AFP journalists in Kyiv saw residents sheltering in metro stations and heard air raid sirens ring out as the capital’s mayor said air defence systems were operating against drones.
Zelensky accused Moscow of deliberately striking on the day of US President Donald Trump’s visit to China.
“It certainly cannot be called a coincidence that one of the longest massive Russian attacks against Ukraine takes place precisely at the time when the President of the United States arrived for a visit to China,” he wrote.
“In this difficult geopolitical moment, Russia is clearly trying to disrupt the overall political atmosphere and draw attention to its evil -– seeking to do so at the expense of Ukrainian lives and Ukrainian infrastructure.”
Earlier on Wednesday he urged Trump to discuss ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine during meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
“We are in constant contact with our American partners,” Zelensky told a summit in Romania.
“We are thankful, and we are expecting that the issue of ending of the Russian war against Ukraine will be raised now as well, while the president of the United States is in China,” he added.
In the western Ukrainian region of Rivne, authorities said three people had been killed and four wounded in drone attacks that also damaged civilian infrastructure and a residential building.
One person was killed in the Zaporizhzhia region and two others in the southern Kherson region.
At least eight people were wounded in the southern Black Sea region of Odesa and the central regions of Khmelnytskyi and Cherkasy.
Kyiv’s military intelligence warned earlier that Russian forces had launched a “prolonged air strike against critical facilities in Ukraine.”
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