KYIV — Russian forces have pummeled Ukrainian cities over the past two days, launching more than 1,000 drones that have killed at least eight people and wounded nearly 100, Ukrainian officials said.
The strikes, which included hits on areas in western Ukraine far from the front lines, are a stark reminder that Moscow’s war continues even as Western officials are consumed with the conflict in the Middle East.
The bombardment included Moscow’s largest single-day drone assault since it launched its full-scale invasion more than four years ago, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday. Close to 1,000 drones were launched at Ukraine over the course of Tuesday, of which some 94 percent were shot down.
The assault also comes as U.S.-led talks aimed at halting the conflict have stalled. The Trump administration has turned its focus to the war against Iran — a development that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said has “complicated” the “geopolitical situation” and provided Russia with “more confidence,” according to a post on his social media Tuesday.
Starting overnight from Monday to Tuesday, Kremlin forces attacked Ukraine in three massive waves, the Ukrainian air force said, initially launching nearly 400 drones and more than 30 ballistic and cruise missiles.
Then, in a rare daylight attack, more than 550 drones were launched at targets throughout the country, including in the far western city of Lviv, which has experienced relatively few attacks since the 2022 invasion.
Videos posted on social media showed an attack drone plowing into a building and setting off a fire in Lviv’s city center — a UNESCO World Heritage site with a medley of cobblestone streets and historic buildings.
Lviv’s cultural heritage office said in a Facebook post that the building was part of the 17th-century Bernardine monastery.
Then, overnight Wednesday, Moscow launched an additional 147 drones.
In all, the three attacks killed at least eight people, including a father and daughter at a maternity hospital in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region.
The scale of Moscow’s attack “strongly indicates that Russia has no intention of really ending this war,” Zelensky said in a video address late Tuesday night.
“And if we take into account that Russia is also helping the Iranian regime to carry out strikes across the region, the conclusion becomes self-evident,” Zelensky continued. “Without additional and strong pressure on Russia, without significant Russian losses, those in Moscow will not develop any desire to back down from the war and somehow come to terms with peace again.”
Ukrainian forces answered the attacks by targeting two major Russian oil terminals near St. Petersburg, Russia’s main conduit for commodities exports.
On Sunday, Ukrainian drones attacked Primorsk, Russia’s largest oil export port on the Baltic Sea, damaging an oil reservoir and oil loading infrastructure, Ukraine’s general staff said in a social media post.
In a Telegram post, Leningrad regional governor Aleksandr Drozdenko confirmed that drones attacked the port, setting ablaze a fuel tank and “containers of petroleum products.”
On Wednesday, Ukraine’s security agency, the SBU, in cooperation with other entities from Ukraine’s armed forces, said it carried out an attack on Ust-Luga, another major Russian energy port on the Baltic Sea.
Drozdenko also confirmed that attack on the port in a social media post.
A fire resulting from the attack could be seen from Finland.
Stopping Russian oil exports, a major source of revenue for the Kremlin’s war machine, is a key Ukrainian goal.
To address the sharp increase in oil prices caused by the war against Iran, the Trump administration partially lifted sanctions on Russian oil exports this month — sending Moscow’s daily oil revenue to soaring to its highest levels in two years.
“The damage to such facilities as Ust-Luga has not only a tactical but also a strategic effect, as it reduces foreign exchange revenues to the Russian budget,” the SBU said in a statement posted on its website, adding that the attack was a “reminder that there are no safe regions in Russia now.”
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