At least seven people, including a six-year-old boy, were killed and more than 80 injured in a massive Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv overnight, Ukrainian officials said Thursday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow launched more than 300 drones and eight missiles in the attack, which targeted several regions but with Kyiv as the main focus.
“Today, the world once again saw Russia’s response to our desire for peace, shared with America and Europe,” Zelenskyy said on X. “That is why peace without strength is impossible.”
The Russian strike — which destroyed part of an apartment block in the Ukrainian capital and damaged one of Kyiv’s mosques — came just two days after U.S. President Donald Trump set a 10-day deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire or face new sanctions.
Trump had previously set a 50-day deadline for an agreement with Ukraine, threatening tariffs if a deal was not reached. During his meeting with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer earlier this week, Trump said he was shortening the deadline to “10 or 12 days.”
“We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting recently. “He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
Emergency services were still searching for survivors in the rubble late Thursday morning, with Zelenskyy confirming that rescue operations were ongoing. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said nine children were injured in the attack, which he said is the most in a single night since Russia’s full-scale invasion began more than three years ago.
“Make no mistake, this is Putin’s response to President Trump’s deadline,” Meaghan Mobbs, daughter of U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg, wrote on X. “We must not be found wanting.”
Following the attack early Thursday, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) struck a sanctioned military electronics plant in Russia’s Penza region with a drone assault, damaging facilities used to produce command-and-control systems for Moscow’s armed forces, according to media reports.
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